Everlasting (Aces High MC - Charleston Book 6) Read online

  “For Deck, we let the men do their thing and hopefully, bring him home. For Ever, you just be there for your sister when she needs you. I have a feeling this is going to get harder on her before it gets better. She’s expecting their baby and he can’t be there for all the things that he made it to for the girls. That’s going to hurt her in ways she can’t even comprehend right now.”

  “What if he doesn’t come back?”

  I sighed heavily, letting my own personal fears about that come to the surface for just a moment. “We’ll deal with that when the time comes, Anna. I don’t want to dwell on that particular ‘what if’, because it feels like we’re giving up on Deck if we do.”

  Anna waved the pages at me once more. “I really think you should allow her to read these, the ones about her, his regrets…”

  “I’m not sure that would help things. They’re in a better place these days, and with everything going on right now, taking her back to that emotional turmoil wouldn’t help.”

  “I guess, but still, I think when things are back to normal…” Anna stopped herself with a half-hearted chuckle. “What the hell is normal anymore?” She asked the question while shaking her head back and forth. “If you choose to let her read these one day, I’ll be there, if she needs me.”

  “That’s all I can ask of you, baby girl. Now, let’s put all this aside and go check in on your sister.”

  Chapter 8

  Four Weeks

  Deck

  My hair, which had grown a bit since I’d been taken, was yanked painfully forcing me to lean my head back and look the bitch in the eye. “What the fuck do you want now, Sasha?”

  She laughed. “Oh, don’t be like that. I just wanted to let you know that Ever received her package today.”

  “What the fuck did you do?”

  “I showed her the truth,” Sasha insisted.

  “The truth?”

  “Yep,” she drawled out, as if she had fun just saying the word. “You belong to me and now she knows it.” She pulled out her cell phone and started scrolling through something before she turned it to face me. There, on her cell phone was a picture of me lying on the bed I was currently tied to while Sasha caressed my face. It looked intimate as all hell unless you realized that I was obviously asleep and not having pleasant dreams.

  I laughed, despite knowing that I needed to play along to keep her away from my family until I could figure out how to get myself free. “If you think that little picture show would convince my wife of anything, you have no clue. You just made her that much more determined to find me.”

  “You’re wrong. I saw her with a new man at her house. He was riding a motorcycle too, so I guess she has a certain type, but you were replaceable to her. Your family now thinks you came to your senses and ran off with your true love. No one is looking for you anymore Declan.”

  “You’re seriously out of your mind if you believe that is true,” I scoffed. Then I remembered that the bitch was out of her mind and having some sort of fantasy life with me tied up here. I still didn’t understand where The Trinity Group came into play with this. If they thought allowing me to be held hostage by a woman who was clearly off her fucking rocker would get them anywhere with my club, they were sadly mistaken. We’d seen enough of crazy bitch drama to last us multiple lifetimes.

  Hindsight is a bitch though. I should have kept my mouth shut. I knew better than to point out the flaws in her logic or to make fun of the bat-shit crazy bitch that had me tied to a bed. I definitely knew better, and still I couldn’t resist running my mouth and putting my faith in my woman back home. She would get me out of this even if my brothers ever gave up on me.

  The next morning after breakfast, I started to see the error of my ways. Despite actually getting some solid sleep, the minute I was finished with my breakfast, I started feeling groggy all over again. Before long, my world was spinning as if I had drunk way too much and was about to pass out. I glanced down at the empty food tray and understood immediately what was happening. There wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it though. The bitch had drugged me, and heaven help me, I didn’t want to know what she planned to do to me in that state. I prayed that I never found out, and more importantly, I prayed that Ever never had to either.

  “Oh good, you finished,” I heard Sasha say, although it sounded like she was so far away.

  “Cunt,” I managed to get out, though it was a bit slurred. She just laughed.

  “You’ll have my cunt, and I promise you’ll enjoy it, lover.”

  If I had any control over my body at that point, I would have vomited on her. Unfortunately, luck and bodily control weren’t on my side any longer. I was well and truly fucked. I never understood, not really, what women must go through when they were roofied. I’d thought about it, obviously, but the horror of knowing something horrible was going to happen to you, and not having a way to stop it, was even more paralyzing than the drug itself.

  I never noticed before, but she had come into my room, ready to take advantage of my drugged up state. The bitch was only wearing a robe and she dropped it, crawled in the bed, and moved to straddle my lap. Inside of my head, I was screaming at my limbs to move. Not that I had much movement, but no one had come to tighten my restraints again. I was allowed a certain amount of slack when I was fed. I had enough still that if I could just get my arms to do what I wanted, I could choke the bitch to death.

  “I promise, it’ll be better than old times, lover. I’ve learned a thing or two since then,” her breathy, sexy talk only made my stomach roll. For a brief moment, I wondered if maybe I would vomit, choke on it and die. It would save me from having to deal with what this bitch had planned for me. It would save me from one day having to tell Ever that I tried, and while it was out of my hands, I hadn’t been faithful to her. She was supposed to be it for me. If choices mattered, then she still was and always would be. The choice was about to be taken from me though. I wasn’t stupid. The male anatomy didn’t always listen to what your head wanted or what your heart was screaming. It responded to stimuli of a physical nature whether you wanted it to or not.

  The door opened before she could get my body to comply with what she needed from me. “Sasha, we need to move!” The urgent tone in the man’s voice rang out before he rounded the door and saw what was happening. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” I heard the man yell and then Sasha was bodily removed from her perch above me, as the man who had entered the room snatched her up by the hair and yanked her off. “You sick bitch. You don’t fucking do that to any man!” I heard a smack resonate in the room and then I lost my battle with the drugs. They took me under and there was no way to swim my way back to the surface to find out what happened. With any luck, the man would kill her for attempting to rape a prisoner that The Trinity Group saw as a bargaining chip.

  Unfortunately for me, I didn’t wake to the end of my nightmare. Instead, I woke up in a new place. At least, I was pretty sure I was in a new place. I was strapped to a different bed, in a new room that had a completely different feel to it than the last. The previous one had been all rough-wood cabin walls and the smoky aroma of a wood-burning fireplace. This one had sheet-rocked and peach painted walls. The hue led me to believe it was the work of a woman, which didn’t instill a whole lot of confidence about where I was and who had me. If there were a God out there listening to my prayers, I sure as fuck hoped I never remembered anything she may do to me that would destroy my spirit or Ever’s faith in me. All I wanted was to get back to my family, but if there was a close second, it was that I was able to come back from whatever was done to me before I was able to get free. I still had hope, even though I knew it was in short supply, and probably of the false variety.

  Chapter 9

  Written Memories

  Lucy

  My beautiful Lucy,

  I still can’t believe you’re gone, again. They managed to drive you away and I’m here holding my heart in my hands and the damned thing is bleedi
ng out before my eyes. The things they did to me… it’s probably best I only have a foggy recollection thanks to the drugs they pumped me with. I wish you had waited around just a minute for someone to explain what happened. Can’t say that I blame you for your instant reaction though. It had to be heartbreaking to see me with someone else. I swear to you though, it wasn’t by choice, baby.

  See, I had something planned for you that night. I had a kutte done up for you with my property patch and a ring…

  I wanted you to be mine in every way, Luce. Kids. Dreaming of kids with you, and watching your body grow with a little person we made together, had become one of my driving forces. Hell, it was all I could think about. We were going to have a boy first so that he’d be the oldest and be able to protect the little sister we’d give him later. That would round out our perfect little biker family. Hell, if you want more, I’ll give you all the kids you want. We don’t have to stop at just two. I’d do anything just to see you happy and glowing and by my side forever.

  I have dreams about holding your round tummy and in them, you’re so fucking beautiful. So, goddamn beautiful it makes my chest ache with wanting the dream to come true.

  Now, you’re gone again. I can’t get anyone to tell me where you are, or how you’re doing. We told your dad what really happened, but something in my gut tells me he won’t inform you of any of it. Not sure he believed us, even with evidence from the hospital that I had been drugged.

  Baby, I’m not even sure I believe in God, but I’ve been praying every night. I need him to send you back to me. When you get back, we’ll start that family. Our boy is going to be the happiest little man on the planet because he’ll have you for a mom. I just know it. He’s going to flourish with you, and hopefully he’ll learn a thing or two from his Pops too. We just need you to come back for us. It’s the only way he’ll get made. It's the only way our family will become what I always dreamed of. Please, baby, be angry at the situation, but then come home to me because I didn’t do anything. Shit was done to me. I’m trying to deal with what happened.

  I won’t admit this to anyone else, but I feel dirty, filthy inside and out, like I can’t get clean. I used to joke and laugh about men who claimed they were… well, who claimed certain things happened to them. “You can’t rape the willing,” I used to say. You can destroy a man who is not willing when you take that from him though. I wake up in cold sweats and I reach for you, but you aren’t there and all I can think is that it’s my punishment for being unclean now.

  Maybe, even if you knew the truth, you wouldn’t want me anymore because you’d see it. The filth that stains me. I try to scrub it away, I pray, I fucking shout down the town looking for where you may have gone. I torment the fuck out of your parents, but no one will answer me. Missing you is an ache I think might just do me in some days. Knowing you may never come back to me. God baby, it fucking kills me.

  Please, come home. Our boy needs us. Our daughter needs us. The family I pictured with you was so close. I could fucking feel it in my guts. I can’t lose that. I can’t lose the promise of them, but I definitely can’t lose you, my love. You’re my only, Baby. The only woman to have my heart and the only who ever will, aside from our daughter one day. I’ll keep on loving you and waiting for you to come back, Luce. No matter how long it takes. I’ll be here.

  Always yours,

  CJ

  I set the letters on my lap and just leaned my head back and closed my eyes for a moment. There were plenty of times I felt like CJ had let me down over the years. Let the kids down even. It never really sunk in just how much my leaving had damaged him though. He went through being raped and having to deal with the aftermath and everything it cost him, and I wasn’t there to help make it better. I was part of the cost, part of his suffering instead. My heart hurt for the younger CJ. The one who wrote that letter was devastated, distraught, and from the sounds of it, barely hanging on.

  Maybe he would have spiraled even if I had stayed. There was no way of knowing. It did me no good to think about it either. Everything in that letter was the past.

  “He dreamed of you,” I said aloud. “You were the first thought he had when it came to raising a family. A boy. His boy. The boy who would protect his sister.” I smiled as I talked to Toby. It was something I did once in a while when I was feeling lost. “You were always a part of his plan, even when he didn’t know about you.” A feeling of warmth and love swept through me as I spoke to him, and as happened sometimes, I attributed it to Toby being there, listening to me. Maybe I was just crazy or having some kind of post-menopausal hot flashes, but I chose to believe instead. My boy heard me. He knew.

  “I know it’s not right to ask anything of you, but if there’s anything you can do, I need you to help your sister again. Bring Deck home to her, and if it’s not too much in the end, make sure your father makes it back to us too. We still need him. We need both of them, especially since we can’t have you.”

  Chapter 10

  Two Months

  Ever

  One glance down at my belly as I waited to be called back to my appointment had me damn near in tears. When we had the twins, Deck never missed a single appointment with me. He was so excited about getting updates about our girls that he was usually rushing me out the door and damn near giddy with excitement. This time was different. There was no Deck and I hadn’t asked anyone else to go with me, unlike the last time when I still had more hope that he would be found before he missed more than the one appointment. Two months had gone by. This was the second one without him there with me, and holding back the tears was becoming harder and harder. Holding on to hope that we would ever recover him was just as difficult a task.

  “Your blood pressure is a little higher than I’d like for it to be,” Doc Middleton mentioned as he glanced from the chart where the nurse had written that information and then back up to me. Doc was a trusted extended family member of the club considering he was Trunk’s uncle and he had also delivered most of the club’s babies. I liked him because he looked like a damn biker when not at work. His dirty blond hair hung past his shoulders normally, though he wore it pulled back in a ponytail or man bun while at work. The soulful green eyes that sat behind a pair of sturdy black-framed glasses noticed everything too. Hell, he noticed too much.

  “I’m fine,” I insisted.

  “Is Deck still…” Doc left his words hanging in the air as if speaking the truth out loud would make it hurt more. While he wasn’t privy to everything going on with the club, he knew enough, and I was comfortable with talking to him about it too.

  “No word. None that’s real or that matters anyway,” I amended thinking back to the package that had been waiting for me on the front steps of my porch when I left for my appointment. It was probably also the reason my blood pressure was slightly elevated. I was pissed the hell off and saddened by the fact that my husband couldn’t be here with me once again because some psycho woman seemed to think she had a fucked up claim on him while he was a prisoner of The Trinity Group.

  In the latest round of pictures that had shown up, the woman was lying naked next to Deck. He was also naked, though I could see bruises on his body. The words written across the image this time, “I told you he’s mine. Stop looking!” Never in my life had I wanted to hurt a bitch to the point of caving in her skull. Even when we found out about Seneca and what she’d done, I had felt that revenge was owed to Gretchen more than me. This was beyond personal though. The woman was taunting me with these photos. She was trying to tear down our relationship so we would give up on him. What she didn’t realize was that she was kicking the hornet’s nest and I was coming out ready to sting.

  Deck’s eyes were barely even slits in the photos and it hadn’t escaped my notice that there were marks in his arms. Marks that meant he was probably being drugged up. He was also a lot thinner. The images were clearly in a different room than the others had been taken in, and it made me wonder if he had been moved or if they were just i
n a different room in the same place. Either way, once my appointment was finished, I would be headed to the clubhouse to get some fucking answers from someone. I would also be turning the images over to the women of the S.H.E. MC. I’d given Deck’s club all the leeway I was planning on giving. They hadn’t kept their promise to me to bring him home, and two months was two months too long in my opinion. There was no telling what was happening to my husband while he was a prisoner of those people. It was obvious he wasn’t being cared for well. He was being drugged. He was obviously being manipulated and manhandled by this woman, whoever she was. I didn’t even want to think about what else she might be doing to him. The pictures were clearly staged, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t taking advantage of his drugged-out state. My stomach lurched and churned at the thought.

  A warm hand gently squeezing on my forearm brought me back to my current reality. “Ever, I asked if you wanted to know today?”

  “I don’t.”

  “Still hoping he’ll be back to find out with you?”

  I nodded my head in the affirmative. If Deck couldn’t find out the sex of our child, then I didn’t want to do it without him either.

  “Okay then. Everything is measuring to date. You need to get plenty of rest and try to get that blood pressure down.”

  “It’s not normally so off,” I finally admitted to him. “I received correspondence this morning. Deck is alive, but he clearly isn’t being treated well.” I swallowed hard while praying that I was right about everything and that he wasn’t in the bed willingly. In my heart, I knew the truth. My eyes told me what they saw too. Still, there was that little smidgen of doubt that always lurked in the far corner of my mind. What if he was tired of us, of me? What if he had staged this? This wasn’t the type of run he would normally go on.