Angels and Ashes (Heaven's Rejects MC Book 2) (28 page)

I knew by forcing him to bring me down here that I was only putting myself back in the line of fire from him and from the shit we’re facing. I sat in that shed and cried for hours after he shoved me in there and revealed the truth about his wife’s involvement in Brent’s murder. What shocked me more was that he could so easily kill the woman who gave him his children. Though, she did rightly deserve her fate, but it also showed just how much of a cold and calculating man he could be and that scares me.

I stayed quiet as much as I could on the ride down here because I didn’t want to draw his attention, but that was an epic fail because I couldn’t keep my eyes off of him in the rearview mirror. With one glance in that fucking mirror, he made me feel alive again, yet his mistrust and anger still stabbed me directly in the heart. I wanted to reach around the seat and touch him to ease his pain and then choke him. His lies pulled my soul apart and now within me lives two different sides of myself: the ruthless side that wants revenge and the soft side that wants to forgive and forget.

I’d be a fool to not know that he lied to me to spare furthering my pain. I’d even go so far as to admit that I would have probably taken the same course of action had the roles been reversed. That line of thought may make me a hypocrite, but I can’t help the betrayal I felt from him. What I think stings more than his lies is how he just shoved me away when things got tough like I was his favorite toy that had to be discarded and hidden away because he didn’t want share me with anyone else. With Michael, it’s all or nothing, and I seem to have ended up with the latter side of the spectrum. Nothing but pain, fear, and being in fucking love with a monster.

“Welcome home, Darcy,” says Hero as he pulls open the door to the trailer in front of us. A putrid smell of urine, mildew, and neglect wafts out of the trailer in huge waves that nearly make me throw up. Hero goes in first and starts popping open windows in a feeble attempt to make the place smell more inviting. I let the place air out more before even stepping inside. Trash litters the floor of this dump. I kick empty beer bottles out of my path as I walk to the back of the trailer. The bedrooms are a little bit better than I thought they would be, but I think I’d rather take my chances and sleep in the SUV for fear of some contracting some Mexican shitting disease. Scrunching up my nose from the smell of the nearby bathroom, I hear footsteps behind me.

“I know it’s not the Hilton, but it’s going to have to do,” Michael’s gruff voice whispers in my ear. His baritones make my body shiver as his closeness sets my skin on fire. “We need to talk,” he demands before taking me by the hand and leading me back outside into the sun and heat.

He walks me over to a tree with a shoddy picnic table underneath it and motions for me to sit. His large frame makes the old wood creak under his weight as he sits down across from me. “I know you are fucking pissed at me and that you want nothing to do with me, but I need to get this out before the rest of the crew shows up and we have to leave. If I don’t come back, I will regret every single second of the afterlife if I don’t tell you this,” he stumbles over his words. “I fucking love you, Darcy. I think I’ve loved you from the moment you walked into our clubhouse on Jagger’s arm.”

“How
dare
you?” I wail, standing up from the picnic table. “You love me? You don’t even know what it means to love someone. Love means that you trust them and confide in them. Not lie until it’s a convenient enough of an excuse to get out. You blew your chance at our relationship because you couldn’t fucking tell me the truth, and no ‘I love you’ is going to save this sinking ship.”

Not letting me have the upper-hand, he stands and plants his feet. “You’re so single-sighted that you don’t see the truth in the reality around you, Darcy,” he exclaims, motioning with his hands. “I may be the devil you desire and hate all at the same time, but I’m the man willing to be the single strand of barbed wire separating you from the evil in this world. No one else would be standing here about to go to war to keep you and the kids safe.”

He takes a step closer to me, and the pull I feel toward him becomes stronger. I have to dig my heels into the dirt in an attempt from flying into his arms.

“Keep me safe? How is this keeping me safe? Or my kids safe? Or your own fucking brothers
safe
? We are standing out in the middle of the Mexican wastelands about to charge a cartel compound.”

His face darkens as his anger falls away from his body and is replaced with sadness. His arms loosen their coiled tension and fall to his sides like broken tree branches cracking in a strong wind.

“I’ve made mistakes in my life that I can’t go back and fix as much as I want to, and that’s on me, but this is my chance to right the wrongs of our past and end it. I’m tired of all the bullshit and bloodshed. It’s time to usher in a new era for this club where we don’t have to constantly look over our shoulders for the next person to take a swing at us.”

“That’s just a pipe dream, and you know it. You talked about how you wanted to be different from your father, and you’ve ended up just like him—knee deep in shit and with blood on your hands. Changing the club’s image isn’t going to fix this shit, and neither is expanding that security business of yours. To change,
you
need to change. You can’t keep burning down bridges and hope they don’t rebuild them. You have to live with the consequences of your actions instead of burying them, hoping that they never resurface again.”

He shakes his head and scoffs. Making the first move, I step toward him and make him look at me. His eyes are so dull and lifeless compared to the light I saw shining behind them before, and I know he’s in far more pain than he’s letting on.

“Michael, you can’t keep putting the world on your shoulders. You need to let someone in that can help distribute the weight. I’m not saying that’s me, but someone needs to be able to help you.”

He winces and moves closer to me. “What if I want it to be you?”

“I can’t be that person for you anymore, and as much as I want to forgive you, I just can’t. Too much has happened in the short time we’ve been together to make me want to fight any harder than I have to fix this,” I whisper as I walk away and head back into the trailer, leaving him behind holding my bleeding heart.

“I can’t promise you that I won’t end up like Brent, but what I can promise you is that even if I end up six feet under the ground I will love you until we meet again,” he calls out before I put too much distance between us.

I know I lied to him, but I can’t let him in again until I know he wants to change and that he’ll fight for us. It’s too risky to just fall to my knees and beg him to come back to me. He needs to feel the weight of the decisions he’s made and decide to change for the better without my influence. It has to come from him and him alone.

The rest of the afternoon, the men from the other chapters ride into the trailer park that apparently had been rented by Voodoo as we drove down here. Each club has a cluster of mobile homes to bunk in as they bring everyone up to speed. I was ordered by Michael in passing to stay in the trailer while they had a combined Church meeting in one of the larger buildings on the property.

After opening the refrigerator in the trailer out of habit, the foulest stench I’ve ever smelled seeps into everything. I bolt from the trailer to avoid throwing up until the concentrated stench dissipates only to run right into Trax. His sickening smile and hot breath boring into my neck unnerves me as he holds onto my body before I tear away from his grasp. If there was someplace for me to take a scalding hot shower, I would sit in there for hours to wash away his touch from my skin. To say he gives me the creeps is a fucking understatement.

“Surprised to see you here, doll. I figured Raze would keep his little pet locked down back at home.”

“The same could be said for you. I figured a man like you would be as far away from the fight as possible.”

“Well, doll. As you said, a man such as I has to protect his business interests. If this club bursts into flames. Well, that’s bad for business. I’m here to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

“What’s your interest in the club business? You don’t have a majority stake or claim to anything this club does. You’re just a bitch player that does what Michael says to do,” I state curiously. I may not be an expert in all things motorcycle club, but in the hierarchy of the Heaven’s Rejects, Trax isn’t exactly a huge player in the organization besides being Michael’s form of leadership in that chapter. Michael holds all the cards to the club, and he plays them close to his chest. The only men who are exceptions to that are the men who sit around his own Church table. Trax doesn’t exactly fit any of the criteria for being in Michael’s inner circle.

“Oh, doll. I have more of a role than you think,” he chides. “Why don’t you go back to your little room and play with your peashooter I see tucked into your jeans and let the men handle the business at hand?”

“This little peashooter,” I say tracing my finger along the butt of the gun hanging at my hip, “would be more than enough to put you out of your misery.”

Trax just laughs and walks away shaking his head. His mannerisms are troubling, and his words even more so. The sheer fact that he’s out roaming the property when Church is still in session is unsettling.
Why isn’t he in there with the other men hashing out the plan?

A short time later, the men begin filing out of their makeshift meeting place and disperse to their various trailers. One of the men from another chapter that goes by the name of Hazzard stops by with supplies a few hours after our arrival. He looks me up and down as he stands at the doorway of the trailer before just walking away.
Is he sizing me up or looking over the woman who singlehandedly forced a man three times my size to take me along on this adventure with threats and promises of more threats?

As I put things away, I hear a truck start up and disappear in a cloud of smoke down the drive. Ratchet shuffles around the trailer organizing the gear. I peek out the window and see many of the men cleaning their weapons under the shade trees. Hours pass, and Michael never resurfaces from the meeting. Something feels off about his absence, but I chalk it up to nerves and how I will play into this fight. I fully intend on participating in some way, yet I know he’ll try to keep me away from it. That’s far from what I want, but I get why he would try it. Safety seems to be his mantra when it comes to me, and sadly for him, I’m not a watch and see kind of girl.

“You see Raze?” asks Hero as he pops his head into the trailer while I am trying to make some sort of a meal from the meager rations delivered earlier.

“Nope,” I say, popping a piece a fruit into my mouth. “The last time I saw him was before he whisked y’all off to Church. Why?”

“No one has seen him for hours and Voodoo is calling my phone like crazy trying to get ahold of him. You sure you don’t have him tied down somewhere in the back?” he asks with worry clearly defined on his face.

“No, Hero,” I bite back. “Like I said, I haven’t seen him.”

Just when I start to repeat my unanswered question, my phone begins to ring as a huge cloud of dust flies into the park. I slip my hand into my pocket and see that Voodoo is now calling me. Swiping to answer the call, Voodoo’s words mush together in an incoherent sentence.

“Woah, slow down, Voodoo. I can’t understand a word you are saying.”

“I need to talk to Raze. This is fucking important, and no one seems to know where he is. I figured if he was holed up with anyone, it would be you,” he semi-yells into the phone.

“Like I just told Hero, I have no clue where’s he holed up.”

“Darcy, listen. I need you to find him and call me back. He needs to hear what I found,” he says as I hear a commotion coming from outside. Men gather around the pick-up truck parked in the middle of the road.
Shit, something’s happened.

“Voodoo, something is going on here. Can you just tell me and I will relay the message for him?”

“Shit, I shouldn’t, but it’ll take me longer to explain it yet again,” he says with a hesitation. “There’s someone at the compound he knows. Maj is fucking alive.”

The phone falls from my hand and bounces on the floor as I can hear Voodoo saying my name. Shock hits me and twists my stomach into knots. I thought he said she was dead and by his own hand. Why in the fuck would he lie to me again about her still being alive? It doesn’t serve him any good to lie about something like that. What if … What if he wasn’t the one who pulled the trigger and he has been in the dark this entire time? Jesus, he probably doesn’t know, either, judging from Voodoo’s insistence to talk to him.

I start to bolt for the door to try to find him when I am met with Hero standing in my way. His eyes are filled with fearful anger, and I know in an instant that something has happened. He shakes his head as he tries to form words, but I cut him off.

“What’s happened?” I question as the pain in my stomach increases to the point I nearly want to double over and scream.

“It’s Raze. The fucking cartel has him.”