A Broken Beautiful Beginning (2 page)

I take the keys out and swing my door open, climb out then slam it closed.
I quickly open the trunk in a panic afraid her head wound is worse than I thought but she’s fast asleep looking ever so peaceful.

My very own Angel, her
blonde hair covers the side of her cheek as well as her right eye as she sleeps innocently.

I hold her tight in my arms and walk her into my home.
She reaches out for me when I lay her out on the bed but it’s not my name she’s calling. I head to the bathroom and get the first aid kit. After cleaning the wound between her thick blonde mass of hair, I look down at her sweet face. The pills I took earlier are starting to work their magic, I can feel it... my body is relaxed… maybe a little too calm. I bring my thumb over her cracked lip and gently feel the soft skin.

Can’t believe I slapped her again. I know it’s no excuse but the girl drives me absolutely crazy. She knows how to push my buttons and even after I treat her like absolute shit, she’ll always be there for me...fucking tears me apart. I want her to yell, scream and hit, I want her to tell me how useless and pathetic I am. But she won’t.

How can she be so sweet
and so fucking naïve? Why the hell did I fuck this up? She’ll never forgive me for this, I went too far, like every other time I’ve hurt her.

Never met anyone like Harley, she was the first girl in my bed and I can promise you she’ll be the last in my heart.

She’s a little tiger and so damn stubborn, I've never worked so damn hard to get a girl before. Maybe that’s what the attraction was, she'd always stop before things went too far and I wasn't used to having a girl withhold sex from me. Girls were always a means to an end. I never wanted more with them, not after I was done but when Harley entered the picture all that changed. I wanted so much more with her and I didn’t know how to handle those new feelings.

Don't get me wrong, there were times
when Harley and I could have gone further but then she'd look at me as if it wasn't my face she was seeing, sometimes I felt like a replacement. I knew that look and I knew the feeling of zoning out too. I’ve done it with every single woman I’ve been with. I'm not the kind of guy that has to look far to get a girl, I mean… the whores at the club are perfect examples of this…but Harley? This girl sure made me work for it. Sweet and loving but when things turned serious, she’d close off, lock me out or usually?

Run away.

S’pose I deserved it. Sometimes it felt as if she couldn't stand being around me and the sight of me disgusted her, but she would never say anything. Those were the times when I should have held her close and told her how much I loved her but instead I got my rocks off with the next club hoe.

I b
roke my girl’s heart just because I’m a self-centred prick.

Harley mumbles in her sleep, and then she gasps, opens her eyes, sits up and backs away from me enough to make her hit her back harshly on my headboard. I can understand why she’s afraid of me. If I was her I’d be afraid of me too. Her reaction however angers me somewhat.

“Please don’t hurt me.” She whispers as she sits on the edge of the bed
wrapping her arms around her legs that are now bent up to her chest in a protective gesture.

If I really wanted to hurt her, that wouldn’t stop me but I don’t tell her this.

“Dammit Harley! You make me sound like a monster.” I swear.

“Look what you’ve done Raven!
You tied up my momma and kidnapped me!” My little tiger emerges. I cringe when she calls me Raven; I hate that name coming from her mouth. I’m Jace to her, she’s the only one I allow to call me by my first name.

“I know okay! Fucking hell…I know.” I stand up straight and pace the room
, I don’t miss the way she flinches when I stood up abruptly.

“
I’m not going to hit you again, so stop flinching... Jesus.” I run my hands through my hair exhaling deeply. She keeps her eyes on the door behind me.

“
You’ve said that before.” She mumbles and I let out a deep breath. I move to sit next to her as close as she’ll allow. I look down at her and notice her body trembling ever so slightly.

I lift my hand and gently wipe the blond hair from her face. She closes her eyes and flinches
but doesn’t move away.

“You need to take me back.” She whispers.

“I know.” I whisper back.
I take a deep breath then say. “I shouldn’t have taken you the way I did, I should have done things a lot differently but it’s too late for that. I can’t take any of it back but I needed to try one last time.” I say with a gruff voice.

“
One last time? Try? What are you talking about Jace?” She finally looks up at me confused.

“To get you
, make you love me… but I’m too late, aren’t I?” I clench my jaw and look down at her sadly.

Understanding crosses her face and her body relaxes
. I can feel the pity flowing from her and I don’t want her pity God dammit, I just want her.

“Jace, we are not good
together. My father may be into the whole biker scene but I just can’t do it. It’s not for me Jace and the club is you. It’s definitely you and that’s your family. You’re going to find someone, I can promise you that, and she’ll love you and support you in every way but that girl… is
not
me. I gave my heart away to someone a very long time ago, he made a mistake and so did I but I need to see where this goes with him. I know this is hard for you to hear but I love him Jace, I loved you too but I would never be able to support you and your role in that club. You need to let me go. Please Jace, just let me go.” She says it with such sincerity and I watch a few tears fall from her eyes. My mind still frozen on the word loved… she loved me, past tense.

I
realize in that moment that it’s too late; her heart truly beats for someone else and will never be mine the way mine belongs to her. I don’t have any more left to say. None of my words will make a difference to her feelings. The part of me that isn’t selfish wants her to be with Caleb so that Willow has her family together but the selfish part of me doesn’t want to let her go.

I
stand up and pull my phone out as I head for the door. I dial the only person I have on speed dial.

He answers. “
Where is she?”

“I fucked up.” I say letting out a deep breath.

I swear he growls, “Where. Is. She?” He grinds out.

“The house
” it’s all I get in before he disconnects the call. I plant my ass on the front step of my porch and wait for the punishment I know is coming.

HARLEY
POV

I sit on his bed afraid to leave the room, I don’t know where he’s gone and if he’s even coming back. There’s a little lamp next to the bed, the room is dim but I can still see everything clearly.
His scent empowers the bedroom, it used to comfort me but now it only causes sadness and sense of claustrophobia. The room is very simple and plain. Definitely manly with no woman’s touch whatsoever, it doesn’t have that homely feel my home has. The bed I’m sitting on is massive, his sheets are grey and black and the room is partially bare with only a black shiny dresser at the other end of the room. He has two little black bedside tables and there’s large arch windows to my left, letting the moonlight reflect into the dim room. From where I’m sitting all I can see is stillness in the distance. His house is so secluded and it’s nowhere near the city.

This
makes me tremble.

My thoughts are disrupted when I hear the
familiar rumble of motorcycles in the distance.

Relief runs cold through my bod
y. The rumbling stops and then I hear shouting and my father’s loud yelling.

“Where is she boy?” he bellows. I hear his frantic footsteps as he comes up the stairs. When he swings the door open and I see his worried face, I burst out crying.

He rushes over to me
and pulls me tightly against his warm chest holding me tight. I breathe in the familiar smell of his leather jacket.

“Thank God
baby girl. Your momma called me frantic. Said Raven took you. That boy is fucked. Wait till I get my hands on him.” He continues to hold me tight but I push him away and look him in the eye.

“Don’t kill him
Daddy, something’s wrong with him. He wasn’t himself when he took me. We spoke and he seems diff…different now, calmer even but at momma’s house he was a different person. I think he needs help Daddy.” I plead with him.

He looks at me thoughtful
ly then wipes away my tears with his rough callused fingers, “You’re too sweet for your own damn good, don’t know how you came from your momma and me but I’m so fucking glad you did. I ain’t gonna kill him Harley… but the boy is gonna have to pay for hitting my baby girl though. Sometimes we all need a push in the right direction and I intend to do the pushing.”

I don’t argue with
that instead I wrap my arms around him again. I watch Hunter come barrelling into the room over my father’s shoulder, his stance relaxes when he spots me in my father’s arms. He puts his hand on his chest and lets out a deep breath.

“
Take her back, I’ll deal with him.” Daddy gives me one more kiss then walks out the door.

Hunter sweeps in and holds me tight against him.

“I’m so glad you’re alright.” Hunter says against my shoulder.

“Did he call you?” I look up to him.

“Yeah he did, we already knew he took you though.” He looks around the room then back down at me. “Let’s get you back to Willow, Princess.”

I don’t see anyone in the house as we leave, Hunter walks fast enough that I don’t have the time to take in my surrounding
s.

Everything
’s a blur.

As I walk down the steps toward Hunter
’s car I see my father’s bike along with a few others parked near the barn. Hunter grabs my elbow and pulls me towards his SUV. He doesn’t want me to see what they’re doing to Jace and I’m pretty sure he doesn’t want to see either. Throughout the ride back Hunter keeps asking if Jace had hurt me, he relaxes a little when I tell him he didn’t. He still looks every bit as pissed off though. We don’t talk much along the ride home but I feel Hunters worried eyes on me every now and then.

I jump out the car before Hunter even has a chance to park. He calls for me but I need to make sure my mother and Willow are okay. The door is open when I walk in, Anna holds my mother in her arms as momma weeps. I never thought I would see both my mother’s comforting each other.

“Harlz.”
Caleb’s big strong arms pull me in. “Thank God you’re back.” He says in a muffled voice.

I hear my name being called
, and I’m pulled from Caleb’s arms into Anna and my mother’s arms. The twins are here too and so is Holly. After everyone gets their hug and I reassure them that I’m fine, I look around for Willow.

“Where’s Willow?”

“She’s sleeping in your room baby, she cried for you but she doesn’t know what happened.” Caleb says holding me close and kissing my forehead.

I lean in
to his protective touch and take in his familiar musky smell. It comforts me and I don’t want to let him go but I need to see my little girl.

He leads me out
of the crowded room toward my old bedroom. The door is a slightly ajar and I push it open the rest of the way, my little Angel is curled up fast asleep. I tip toe into the room and climb in next to her. I bring her into my chest and hold her tight. She stirs in her sleep, rolls over then searches for my hand. I give it to her and she reaches for my finger. Holding it tightly, she falls back to sleep.

I feel the blankets move behind me and the bed dips as Caleb climbs in
closely on my small double bed. He leans over me and looks down at our daughter in my arms. He then looks at me and kisses my shoulder softly.

“I love you.” He whispers. “I love both of you…so much.
I don’t ever want to lose you again baby.”

He wipes a tear that falls down my cheek as I whisper.
“I love you too… you two were all I could think about while I was with him. I missed you. I know I said we should wait and take this slow and I still want to take it slow but I don’t want to wait anymore. You and Willow are my world. I love you so much Caleb, we’ve wasted so many years being apart. I want our family together; you, me and Willow.”

He wraps his arms around both Willow and I and rests his head in my neck kissing me gently. I feel the droplets of his tears running down my collar bone.

He lifts his head with tear shining eyes, “You don’t know how long I’ve been waiting to hear that.”

HUNTER POV

“What the fuck is wrong with him?” I slam my hands onto the steering wheel as I drive back to Raven
’s house. I’m dreading having to do what I’m about to do, but I know I don’t have a choice in the matter. Grimm won’t let me be excluded from this, he sees Raven and I as brothers… meaning I have to have a part in his punishment.

I don’t know if I could ever willingly hurt the
man…he saved me after all, but now it is my time to do the saving… and that is exactly what I plan on doing, no matter how hard it is for me to do.