Torched: Afterburn (Iron Serpents Motorcycle Club Book 2) (34 page)

It was mind-blowing to think how interconnected so many events had become. If Scully and the militia hadn’t stolen from the club, there was a good chance Buddha would’ve kept suffering in silence until a transplant wasn’t even an option; if Nadia hadn’t come back to Linwood, he would have been completely shit out of luck either way; and if he hadn’t gotten sick in the first place, I never would have found out about Nicole or been able to help her.

No matter what we’d all gone through over the past few weeks, I could honestly say it had all been worth it. Transitioning into married and club life hadn’t exactly been a smooth ride, but I’d take twisty back roads over a straight, desert highway any day. Adversity bred chaos, but perseverance through the eye of a storm bred loyalty and strength.

After signing paperwork and lying to the wonderful nurses who’d kept me plied with juice and cookies that I had a ride, I made my way out into an adjoining waiting room.

And then I almost shit my pants.

Sitting in the corner with his head down was my long lost father.

God, I was such a fucking dumbass for thinking I could sneak a visit with Nicole and just go on my merry way. I figured Graham had recognized me by the elevator, but I’d spent the past few hours convincing myself he wasn’t stupid enough to try approaching me after the procedure.

Nope, I wasn’t doing this. Not today.

Before he had a chance to look up, I turned my head and bolted from the room. Finding a stairwell a few yards away, I ducked inside and flew down the stairs as fast as my feet could take me.

I wasn’t scared of him, I wasn’t running for any reason other than avoidance and self-preservation. Wasn’t that what I did best whenever ghosts from the past threatened to catch up to me?

Why was that? I could stand up to just about anything and anyone, but throw a little emotional baggage into the mix and suddenly I reverted back to feeling like a child.

I only managed to make it down to the next landing before hearing the door open above me.

“Chloe!” Graham called out.

My mental state may have gone back in time, but my instincts hadn’t. I reached into my purse, spun around, and shakily pointed a Glock up at his worthless head. “
Don’t
,” I snarled.

He raised his hands and took a step back. “Okay… Okay, I’ll stay up here… God, you… you look just like your mom. I’d recognize you… my daughter… anywhere.”

My body instantly felt tense enough to deflect a bullet. “You lost the right to call me that a long time ago.”

“I know,” he muttered. “Chloe—”

“That’s not my name anymore!”

“Okay, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

“You didn’t mean to
what
?” I raged. Maybe this was what I’d been trying to avoid. I knew all those compartments in my head weren’t actually black holes, at some point they were destined to fill up and overflow.

My gun still on the target, I lost it. “
Tell me
! You didn’t mean to leave me to fend for myself as a kid because I’ve
always
looked like mom? You didn’t mean to drop me off with fucking rapists, who made my life such a living hell that it was better to just give them what they wanted? You didn’t mean to leave me with no choice but to kill one of them and live my life on the run from the other for almost a decade? Or maybe you just didn’t mean for me to find out that you somehow managed to build a nice little life for yourself after throwing me away like a piece of trash. But I guess Nicole wasn’t cursed with being born with the wrong face, huh?”

He shook his head vehemently. “Honey, you have to believe me when I say it’s not like that. I’m so sorry—”

“Yeah, I bet you fucking are. And no, I don’t need to believe a goddamn word you say. I have all the facts I need, I was
there
. Do you even realize how long it took for me to have a marginally normal life after the domino effect you started? It literally happened a few months ago. Because on top of everything else, Mitch eventually caught up to me and I had to spend a year in fucking prison to protect my real family from the fallout.”

“Oh god,” he choked out, his eyes watering.

I sneered. “You’re a
bitch
, Graham. And I hate bitches. Mitch and Vince were fucking evil, but at least they wore it on their sleeves instead of hiding behind a facade like you’ve been doing all these years.”

He opened his mouth to say something, but just sighed and stared at me instead.

“Did you even try to come back for me? Ever?” I demanded.

He closed his eyes and dropped his head. “Of course I did…”

“When?”

“A few months after I left when I finally bottomed out. I knew I’d screwed up the minute I drove off, but you have to understand, I just wasn’t in my right mind—”

“I don’t have to understand
shit
!” I yelled. “How much further could you possibly fall after gambling away your own fucking child? And
stop
lying, I was at that house for a year before we moved to another one.”

He shook his head. “I’m not lying. I went there but Mitch wouldn’t let me in. He had a gun and—”

“So you just gave up? Are you fucking kidding? All you had to do was make one call to the cops and they would’ve shown up with a SWAT team. But it wasn’t the gun that stopped you, was it? No, you were more worried about going to jail yourself for neglect and trafficking. You’re a bitch
and
a coward
.
”

My heart pumping violently, I tightened my grip on the gun so it wouldn’t slip out of my sweaty hand. The rage was so intense, so hot, that it was manifesting itself in a physical feeling of something clawing at my skin from the inside. Thank fuck I was in a hospital, because I was definitely about to stroke out. No question, the tunnel vision had already set in.

But then I heard it.

The sound of salvation.

It wasn’t loud, certainly no louder than the angry and bitter demons throwing a shit fit in my brain, but the comforting familiarity of keys clinking and boots stomping on concrete cut right through everything else.

“Shit,” I heard Torch curse, as he made it up the last couple of stairs and saw what was happening. He quickly rounded the railing and stepped in front of me, but I couldn’t loosen my grip on the gun. Stroking my hair and tucking it behind my ear, he whispered, “Babe… Hey… I know you’re in there. Flip that switch, Liv.” I glanced down at the floor, but he cupped his hand under my chin and lifted it back up. “Sweetheart, you’re bleeding.”

Bleeding? I frowned in confusion.

He pointed at the crook of my right arm, where blood had seeped through a bandage and was starting to trickle out from under it. Between increased pressure and squeezing the grip of my gun like one of those stress balls, I seemed to have reopened the vein.

My chest heaving but my body still frozen, I looked into Torch’s eyes and let their warmth lull my turbulent thoughts. Even amid this emotional hurricane, I knew exactly what he was doing. And it was more than just trying to talk me out of first-degree murder. Mentally, he was using my own coping mechanism; physically, he’d positioned himself between me and the enemy to create a protective barrier which Graham didn’t stand a chance of penetrating.

“I’m here,” he soothed, “I’ll
be
here ‘til I take my last breath. You’re okay, he can’t fucking touch you.” Torch wrapped his fingers over the barrel of the gun but didn’t try to pry it away. “Listen to me… If you want him gone, we’ll make it happen, but you can’t do this here. I’m not letting you go away again over a heat of the moment thing. I love you, baby, we’ll figure it out. But you gotta give me the gun now, okay?”

I nodded, slipped my finger off the trigger, and let him slide it out of my hand. Torch tucked it down the back of his jeans and wrapped his arm around my shoulder.

I stared at my father, wondering when those wet cheeks and pained expression would start to feel good. Over the years, I’d thought about this moment so many times, looking forward to seeing his eyes twisted up in sorrow, in sadness, in overwhelming guilt. But looking at him now, I realized there was nothing in it for me, no satisfaction to be had from hurling more hateful words or even killing him. Murder had never been part of my reunion visions anyway.

Pulling a gun on him aside, the truth was that I hadn’t once considered knocking off my own father, not seriously anyway. That wasn’t to say I couldn’t, or that one of these days I wouldn’t, I just didn’t see the point in the here and now. Graham Belman was a tragically flawed human being, one who’d fucked up in the worst way imaginable. But if it hadn’t been for his biggest fuck up of all, I never would have ended up with the life I had now.

Tucked into Torch’s side, I was anchored to my rock, and my shitty childhood was nothing but the remnants of a shipwreck corroding at the bottom of the sea below.

At the end of the day, the only reason we were standing here was because there was a little girl bravely fighting for her life. An
innocent
little girl who could still have a bright and beautiful future ahead of her; unburdened by the kind of loss, struggle, and depravity I’d had to overcome. By all accounts, Nicole was well-adjusted, cherished, and taken care of. She was wiser and braver than any other child I’d ever met.

And she loved her dad.

“I had my finger on the trigger,” I finally said. “Why didn’t you run when you had the chance just now?”

Graham wiped his teary eyes with a sleeve. “Because I’m not the coward I used to be and I’ve taken away enough of your choices. I know exactly why you want me dead and you have every right to feel that way. I can’t do anything to change what happened, but I
can
take whatever retribution would ease some of your pain. This gentleman’s right, you probably shouldn’t do it here, but if you can wait until Nicole’s out of the woods and tell me where to go, I’ll be there. I’ll even dig my own grave.”

I held up my hand to stop him before he triggered flashbacks to the night I’d buried my first body. “I don’t want you dead.”

He looked understandably confused, considering I’d been a twitch away from making that happen just minutes earlier.

“I won’t even make your new life hard by exposing your past,” I continued, acutely aware of Torch’s eyes burning a hole in the side of my head. “What’s done is done, words won’t change anything and violence doesn’t really heal. But listen to me carefully,
dad
… I know where you live, where you work, who your friends are, and everything down to the code on your home security system. You won’t see me, you won’t hear from me, but I’ll be watching. Everyday. You better hope this reformed version of you is solid, because if you abandon my sister, if you lay a hand on her, if you so much as make her fucking cry, I
will
come for you. I’ll cut you open from your throat to your stomach and light you on fucking fire. Are we clear?”

Torch added his two cents, “I know you’re a shitty poker player, so let me give you some advice. My wife’s got a strong stomach and she’s
not
fucking bluffing.”

Graham gulped hard. “I understand. Thank you… Both of you.”

With nothing left to say, I acknowledged my father’s gratitude with a simple nod and rubbed Torch’s back to signal that I was ready to go. He bent down to pick me up, but I turned him down. “I can walk.”

He paused but didn’t second-guess, and took my hand instead.

Knowing I’d probably never see Graham again, I felt an urge to glance back over my shoulder for one last look at where I’d come from. But thinking back to the night he’d left me on Mitch’s doorstep without so much as a word—never mind a look of regret—I resisted. I held my head high and focused on Torch, the only man who would ever have any power over me. Power he’d earned by not abusing what little I’d given bit by bit.

As he guided me out and we headed for his bike, I saw Zed leaning against the club’s tow truck parked right next to it. My car was already hooked up.

“Hey you,” Zed greeted, stepping up and giving me a big hug. “Feeling okay?”

I smiled up at him. “Yeah, just a little tired. How did the transplant go?”

“Everything’s good as far as I know. Nadia’s being discharged as we speak and Buddha’s in isolation for a few days to keep infections away. Hopefully the marrow takes.”

“It will, he’s not going anywhere.”

“Hope not,” he replied. “By the way, when I said I wished you had a sister, I didn’t mean a fucking nine-year-old.”

I laughed and shook my head. “Sorry, babe.”

Torch had ducked into the truck and came back out with a first aid kit. He took my arm and peeled away the bandage, then wiped off the extra blood and covered my puncture wound with a fresh one. He checked my other arm before tossing the plastic box back inside the truck.

He leaned down to kiss me and I could feel the color coming back to my cheeks as I latched onto his soft lips and breathed in their warmth.

“We should go in the wrecker,” he said. “I’ll have Z take my bike back.”

“No, I wanna take your bike.”