Welcome to Sugartown (26 page)

Ana shakes
her head, “My dad, he can’t … this will destroy him.”

“
No. It
won’t.” I peer out through the curtains at the car park below.
“Learning that you covered it up and let that arsehole walk, that
will destroy him.”

She glances
up at me. Her voice is just a whisper when she says, “What did you
do?”

“
I didn’t
kill him, Ana. I wanted to.” I shake my head. “I
want
to, but then he’s
still not really paying for what he did. It’d be giving him an out.
Report it, get the rape kit and he’ll be locked away,” I say,
before adding, “It might not be as long as he deserves, but a
pretty boy like him will spend every day in prison wishing he’d
never laid a hand on you.”

I glance at
Holly, who’s looking at me with an odd expression, which is really
saying something because she’s always looking at me odd. “Can you
give us a minute?”

“
Sure.” She
squeezes Ana’s hand and then steps out onto the balcony, closing
the door behind her.

“
I’m sorry,
baby girl. I know I betrayed your trust, but I hope you know I did
it because I thought it was for the best.”

“
That wasn’t
your call to make,” she snaps and peeks up at me from behind a
curtain of the prettiest hair I’ve ever seen.

I hear the
wail of sirens in the distance and I know I don’t have long. I pull
her to her feet, wondering whether these precious few minutes with
her will be the last I’ll ever get. God, I hope not because I love
this crazy, naïve, insanely beautiful woman more than I’ve ever
loved anyone, and the thought of never seeing her smile again, or
the way she folds her arms and arches her eyebrow when she gets
mad, or hearing the way she moans when I bring her exquisite pussy
to the brink with my mouth, forces something inside me to snap. I
know she’s still furious with me she has every right to be, but I
don’t have time to worry about how much I hurt her, because those
sirens are getting closer and she and I are drifting further
apart.

“
Promise me
you’ll report this?”

“
What, like
you promised me?”

“
Ana, please,
I’m begging you. If you care about me at all, you’ll report
it.”

“
What does
that mean?” The sirens get louder and it must finally click with
her because she glances up at me with eyes shining with tears.
“They’re coming for you?”

I
nod.

She closes
her eyes and the tears start rolling freely. “No. What did you
do?”

“
It doesn’t
matter,” I say and take her chin in my hands, because I’m afraid
touching her cheeks will only cause her more pain. “I love you,
baby girl.”

I press her
into me and kiss her hard on the mouth. It’s not a lingering kiss,
she doesn’t open her lips and I don’t force her, but for a moment I
feel her soften and melt into me and that’s good enough.

“
I’m sorry
you have to see this,” I say, as I pull away from her lips and
study her face one last time. Outside, the screeching of brakes
sets my hair on end. I count three pairs of footsteps thundering up
the stairs and hear Holly swear beneath her breath and mutter, “Ah,
guys?” before an officer kicks in the motel door and two more are
pulling me away from Ana. She cups a hand over her mouth and shakes
her head in disbelief.

I’m asked to
put my hands behind my head and I do. I also bend a little at the
knees in order for the officers to reach my arms but some fuck-rag
shoves his boot in the back of my knees and I drop like a tonne of
bricks. Then I’m being shoved face down on the floor with some
arsehole’s knee between my shoulder blades as they slap a pair of
cuffs on me and yank me up by my wrists.

“
Elijah Cade,
you’re under arrest for the mutilation of Scott Turner. You have
the right to remain silent …” The officer continues to read me my
rights but I don’t hear any of it. I’m too focused on Ana and the
way she’s mouthing “mutilation” at me like it’s a question she
thinks I can answer. I feel the officers restrain my hands and slip
the cuffs into place and then I’m being hauled to my feet and
carted out the door.

“
Wait,” I
hear Ana say behind me and my walk of shame comes to a grinding
halt. “I need to report a rape.” She blurts out, and for a
heartbeat no one says a thing.

The officer
holding my arm yanks me around to face her. “This guy?”

“
No.” Ana’s
shaking like a leaf but her gaze slides over me and she steels
herself, wipes her tears and says, “Scott Turner is the one who
raped me, in the cane fields outside town, last night.”

The officer
nearest me sighs and pushes me toward the door, and I overhear the
cop who read me my rights telling Ana to follow him down to the
station.

I don’t know
what lies ahead of me now, but I’m bursting with pride over how
fucking brave my girl is. The officer forces my head down as he
guides me into the back of the paddy wagon and, for the first time
in my life, I smile as I’m carted off to the station.

Chapter Twenty
Three

Ana

The next six
hours of my life are a living hell.

Holly drives
and we follow the police to the station where I deliver my
statement of last night’s events to a man who has known me all my
life, and is equally familiar with Scott Turner. I cry as I recount
the drinking, the struggle and several times I have to stop to
catch my breath as I tell Constable Miller about waking up alone in
a cane field, about the pain lancing through my insides as I
struggled to find my clothing and then walking the 2 kilometres
into town to Elijah’s motel room.

Afterward,
I’m taken into a room where the Constable photographs my face, the
bruises on my legs and the bite over my breast. Then I’m released
and taken back to the hospital where the same nurse who had set my
cast and taken care of me the night of the lantern parade carries
out a rape kit, takes vials of my blood to be checked for STIs and
HIV/AIDS, and hands me a tiny pill to swallow to prevent an
unwanted pregnancy. I’m sent for x-rays to ensure my cheekbone is
not broken and then I’m given a prescription for painkillers and
the all clear to head home.

The police
confiscated my clothing for evidence back at the motel. I only have
the paper gown I’m wearing and the oversized t-shirt and tracksuit
pants Elijah dressed me in last night. The thought of staying in
his clothes, inhaling his scent the entire way home turns my
stomach. I’m so confused right now as to how I feel, I’m almost
numb. Thankfully Holly has a change of clothes in her car and she
steps out to retrieve them. I lie back against the pillow and stare
at the water stains on the ceiling. For the first time today my
eyes are dry but when I hear a gruff, all-too-familiar voice out in
the hallway they tear up again. My heart drops through my
stomach.

Not
here
, I think,
not like this
.

“
Sir, you
can’t just walk in there,” a nurse calls from outside my
door.

“
Like hell I
can’t,” he booms.

My door flies
back on its hinges and across the room stands my dad. I watch him
take me in and then his face crumples into a mask of anguish and my
big, burly, rough-as-guts and tougher than a twenty-foot crocodile
father sobs. Tears stream over his ruddy, sun-weathered cheeks and
he cradles his face in his huge grease-stained palms.

For a moment
I have no idea what to do. The nurse is watching me for some sign
as to whether she should call security. I briefly shake my head and
she leaves us alone.

“
I’m so
sorry, Daddy,” I whisper and he crosses the room in two strides and
wraps me up in his arms.

“
Ah, Ana
girl, this isn’t your fault.” He pulls my head to his chest,
cradling his thick arms around my head the way he used to when I
was a kid, making me feel as safe and protected as I did back then.
We cry together until Holly comes back with the change of clothes,
and then Dad pulls her into his arms and holds us both as he
sobs.

I don’t need
to ask how he knew we were here. News travels fast in small towns
like ours. Which is part of the reason why I never wanted to tell—I
can’t stand the thought of people looking at me with pity in their
eyes, and I can only imagine what this does to their “Ana Belle the
town bike” theory, but I’m grateful to have my dad here with me all
the same.

Once I’m
finally dressed and on my feet again, I thank Holly and tell her
how much I love her and how thankful I am to have her in my life,
and then I ride home with my dad. I close my eyes as we drive past
the cane fields and then again as we drive past Elijah’s motel
room.

I don’t know
how I’ll continue living in this town with so many horrible
memories around every corner. I don’t know how I’ll ever forgive
myself for the decisions I made that night, or how I’ll forgive
Elijah for the ones he made, but I’m glad now that I reported it. I
don’t have room in my heart right now to think about how he’s doing
behind bars or how long he’ll be there. The word “mutilation” keeps
running through my mind unbidden and I can only guess what it
means, but I’m hoping to god it’s not what I think it is because it
would mean that Elijah, my Elijah, was as sick as Scott and it
hurts too much to think about that.

Chapter Twenty
Four

Elijah

I spend all
day at the station knowing she’s in a room nearby, wishing I could
be there to hold her hand through what comes next but knowing that
I deserve this, to be locked in a cell for a very long time for
what I did.

The cops have
already informed me that I won’t be getting a trial. Instead,
because I’m already a convicted felon with two priors, I’ll stand
before a judge in some bullshit courtroom hearing and have a
sentence handed down to me. I don’t give a shit about the details
because, deep down, I know that though what I did was barbaric, it
was also the right thing.

Thankfully,
I’m in a cell alone, and I don’t have to listen to some other fuck
up fart and piss and complain about how he’s innocent. Instead, I
lie back on the cold metal bunk, close my eyes and pretend that I’m
in that shitty motel room and Ana’s wrapped in my arms where she
belongs.

Much later in
the day I’m taken before the judge. Despite what my legal aid
lawyer says, I plead guilty to malicious intent to harm another
individual. When he asks me why I committed such a heinous crime on
an “innocent” young man I laugh so hard I almost die. Then I turn
to him in all seriousness and say, “What would you do to the man
who brutally raped your wife?” For a half-second he just blinks
back at me and I think I see pity or even understanding in his
eyes, but then he lifts his gavel, glares at me like this is the
last place on earth he wants to be and sentences me to one year in
prison with parole for good behaviour. He brings down the gavel
with a hard knock. The finality of that all too familiar sound
rings in my ears and makes my heart squeeze.

I’m
handcuffed again and driven for two hours in the back of a paddy
wagon to Grafton Prison where I’m stripped, hosed down and some big
Maori guy buzzes off my all my hair. Then I’m shoved out in the
yard for playtime, where every badass motherfucker in a bad mood is
eye-raping me like I’m fresh meat. This is nothing new; it’s not my
first time at the fucking rodeo, but it is the first time I’ve been
inside without the weight of the club at my back. MCs have
connections everywhere, from prison staff to inmates, and I may be
a long way from home but that doesn’t mean the Angels don’t have
contacts inside this prison. If they do, I’m as good as
dead.

Chapter Twenty
Five

Ana

I pour two
vodka shots and slide one over to Holly before leaning back in the
faded lounge chair. Dad and the dragon are out on some weekend-long
bike run to the mountains and Sammy has long since gone to bed.
These kinds of nights have been almost a regular occurrence for us
since Elijah went away and Cooper up and left town for the city
lights and the stage. Holly and Coop drove me crazy with their
kissy faces and their pet nicknames, at least for the first two
months; after that things began falling apart, swiftly.

Coop missed
the city, he missed his band and he missed being worshiped by his
groupies on the dance floor as he belted out songs from the stage
and, despite wanting an out almost her entire life, Holly didn’t
want to leave Sugartown. I hope that wasn’t on my account, but I
suspect Elijah being behind bars and my impending trial might have
had something to do with it.

Things got
messy between Holly and Coop. They fought, they made up and then
one day he showed up at the diner with a loaded car and an even
more loaded ultimatum. Holly, being the stubborn woman she was, was
determined to prove her point, so she sent him off without so much
as a kiss goodbye.

“
You know,
I’ve been thinking,” she begins.

“
No.”

“
What do you
mean, no? You haven’t even heard my brilliant plan.”

“
And yet the
answer is still no.”