Haven: Renegade Saints MC (9 page)

Victoria

When Danny got there, he plopped down in front of the television and grabbed a beer from the fridge. I stood there, watching him, feeling nervous.

“Are you going to get drunk?” I cringed; my voice came out sounding much more harshly than I meant it to.

Danny turned towards me. “Nah,” he said with a grin. “I’d have to drink, like, fifteen of these to even get a buzz.”

I swallowed hard, glad that he hadn’t noticed, or at least, acknowledged, my rudeness.

“I’m going to my room,” I said finally.

Danny nodded. “Yell if you need anything. I dunno when Max is coming home.”

I stomped to the other side of the house, feeling more pissed off than I had any right to be. I didn’t know why I was so mad. It wasn’t like a real marriage, where Max would have to tell me where and when he was going someplace, or when he’d be coming back home. I didn’t have a right to know this stuff at all, so it bothered me that I was taking it so personally. It wasn’t like Max was doing this to hurt me deliberately. I knew that; I wasn’t being stupid.

But not being able to get to the bottom of my own emotions was always frustrating to me. When I was with Silas, any time I got mad, he acted like my emotions had no place being where they were. He gaslit me, and every time I was upset, he’d spin it to make it seem like I was being crazy. It sounded stupid, but I fell for it every single time. After all, he was my first real adult relationship. He was the one I trusted, the one I thought I loved.

I shook my head.
Tori, you have a lot to learn about relationships
, I thought to myself.
You really do
.

But the funny thing was I didn’t know how I was going to learn any of that with Max. Max was great, but he wasn’t the warm, cuddly kind of guy I normally would have wanted. He was a lot like my father.

Sitting down on the bed, I pouted. My dad had been a good guy, but he’d been a strict father. I wasn’t allowed to date, and I wasn’t allowed to hang out with my friends late on school nights. Dad always suspected that I was trying to sneak around with boys, but the truth was nothing so shady as that. Normally, I was interested in hanging out with my girlfriends and listening to them talk about
their
experiences. Even though I desperately wanted a boyfriend, to be in love, I was too shy. And I was too tall; most of the guys at school barely came up to my chin.

Frowning, I stood up and walked over to the closet. The room I’d slept in the first night at Max’s was pretty sparse, but I wondered what he had locked away. At first, I was disappointed. The closet had a clear plastic bag with another duvet cover and some things that looked like old textbooks. I sighed in frustration and went to close the door. Somehow, something got knocked off balance, and then suddenly the floor at my feet was littered with photographs.

Bingo
. Satisfied, I sat down and started digging through them. There were a lot of typical shots—Max with his guys at strip clubs, Max with his guys at bike shows. I rolled my eyes at a series of photos that looked like someone’s bachelor party; Max was reading something off a piece of paper to a guy with a cake-covered stripper in his lap. But after a moment, I laughed. The guys were just having fun, and nothing looked particularly dangerous, just a bit sexist.

Finding the photos in the spare closet made me wonder what else Max was hiding. I slipped into the hallway, careful not to disturb Danny, who some show, another beer in his hand, and padded down to the closet outside of Max’s bedroom. This closet was much better organized, with old clothes in boxes and some photo albums that looked like they were falling apart. Hope rose inside of me as I grabbed one of them and tiptoed into Max’s bedroom.

It’s your bedroom too
. But it didn’t
feel
like my bedroom. It felt like a boyfriend’s bedroom. Blushing at the memory of last night, I curled up on the bed and dragged the album onto my lap.

Renegade Saints:
1982-1992
was printed on the inside cover. I grinned. There was my dad in the middle of the first page. He was standing with his arms crossed over his chest, giving the middle finger to the camera. Whoever had snapped the shot had caught him laughing, and I was astounded to see how young my father looked. Even though the photos were taken before I was born, there was a strong resemblance between us. We both had the same piercing green eyes and straight nose. Kristoff had dark brown hair, but even so, we looked related all the same.

“Dad,” I murmured, running my hand over the page. “It’s you. I can’t believe it.” I turned the page and scanned through the photos with a grin on my face. The photos, even though they were old, looked like they’d been taken yesterday. The sky was blue and the trees were green and the leather on their jackets was shining black.

“Dad, you were awesome,” I said under my breath. My eyes filled with tears as I stared at the pictures. Something deep inside of me felt touched.

Dad and I hadn’t exactly been that close growing up, but I appreciated him so much more as an adult. He hadn’t approved of Silas, though, and that had made visits difficult. My blood curdled in anger as I remembered how Silas had tried over and over again to manipulate me away from spending time with my own damn family. I hated him. As much as I wanted to forgive him for treating me like shit, I couldn’t forgive him for squandering my life left with my father.

My eyes filled with tears and I closed my lids, letting hot tears leak down my face.
I’m sorry, Dad
.
I’m so sorry I didn’t have the strength to break up with him before you died
.

Silas had even kept me from going to the funeral. We’d had a fight the night before over what I was planning to wear—a black dress that he deemed too revealing—and I’d stayed up crying for hours, locked in the bathroom. When Silas told me that he didn’t have the energy to go the funeral, I’d known what was coming next.

“So that means you’re not going,” Silas had said with a smirk. “I don’t want men looking at you and trying to take advantage of you right now. You’re my girl,” he’d added. It hadn’t made me feel any better. I remembered that day vividly: I’d dried my tears, then made Silas a sandwich.

Later that night, after Silas had fallen asleep, I snuck out to see Dad’s grave. The soil was still fresh and all of the bikers had set down bouquets of roses and trinkets and mementos that made them think of Kristoff. I hadn’t had anything to bring, so I left one of my earrings at the grave site.

When I got home, Silas had been raging and angry. He’d woken up to find me gone, and he was mad at me for leaving. He accused me of being with someone else. In desperation, I told him that I’d been to see my father’s grave. He said that he didn’t believe me at first, until I told him about the earring. We drove back out to the cemetery and Silas made me dig around in the grass until my knees were bleeding, looking for the earring.

“I hope you feel good about yourself,” Silas had sneered afterwards. “You ruined my sleep for the second night in a row, you cunt.”

Thinking about it now made me sad and angry. I wanted Silas to hurt, I wanted him to pay for everything he’d done to me. It wasn’t just the abuse that bothered me; the thing that hurt most now was knowing that he’d effectively kept me from my father for years at a time. We could have had a good relationship.

I punched the bed. As tears streamed down my face, I reached over and slapped the album cover shut. Someday, another day, a day when I was feeling better about myself, maybe I’d be able to look at the pictures again. But right now, I had to find a way to distract myself as quickly as possible.

Standing up, I wiped my hands on my jeans and looked around the room. Max’s bedroom was neatly kept, but I knew that a man like Max had a lot of secrets. As I gazed around, looking for a way to distract myself, I was aware of my heart beating faster and faster in my chest.

“Calm down, it’s just like when you were looking for photos,” I said under my breath. “It’s nothing worse than that.”

But I knew I was wrong. It wasn’t like that, not at all. This was Max’s bedroom, and I was actually snooping.

“Shit,” I mumbled. But I couldn’t make myself stop. There was a moment where I wanted to walk out of the room, down the hall, and join Danny in front of the TV. But I couldn’t do it.

I got on my hands and knees and cautiously tugged open the bottom drawer of Max’s dresser. It was stuck, and I had to wiggle the wooden drawer in the frame to get it to pull out.

“Come on,” I mumbled, my tongue poking out of my lips. “Come on, that’s it.”

When it was open, I frowned. There wasn’t anything sordid in here, no love notes, no bloodstained clothing. There were some heavy metal objects wrapped in tissue paper. Narrowing my eyes, I reached down and pulled them out, gently unwrapping them and setting them on the carpet.

I stared at the objects. It was a tarnished silver-backed brush and mirror, both engraved with the name Talia.

I bit my lip. Who did these belong to? Suddenly, it seemed like a bad idea to go digging around in Max’s room. I’d effectively distracted myself from Silas, but I wasn’t feeling much better than I had before. After looking around, I had more questions than answers, and my head was starting to hurt.

Who was Talia? What was she doing in Max’s room? Picking up the brush, I noticed that a lot of tarnish had accumulated on the back. They’d been wrapped in tissue paper, which was supposed to stop that. That meant these things had been here for a long time.

I frowned. Was Talia Max’s mother? Or maybe some dead aunt who had left heirlooms?

The strangest thing was that even though the brush and mirror had clearly been packed up ages ago, they both looked almost new aside from the tarnishing. All of the bristles in the brush were there, and there were no hairs trapped inside.

“What exactly is going on here?” I asked to myself. Closing my eyes, I tried to imagine Talia, whoever she was. Was she a family member? An old girlfriend?

A chill passed over my body and I shuddered, like someone had walked across my grave. “Who are you?” I asked, holding the mirror up and staring at my reflection. “And what are these doing here?”

Max

I left Maria’s feeling even worse than when I’d arrived. Even though I knew she was trying to help me feel better, the champagne and pity didn’t really do it for me. I wanted to tell her that it wasn’t like that with Tori, that my emotions no longer ruled me.

But I had a feeling she wouldn’t have listened. Maria was one of those infuriating, smart women who always thought she knew best. Trying to argue with her was no better than trying to argue with a damned crocodile. 

I couldn’t go home and face Tori like this. She’d know something was up, for better or worse. I called some of the guys and asked if they wanted to go out for a drink or ten.

“I don’t know, man,” Paul said. “I got some shit to take care of later. I can’t get too hammered.”

“Don’t be a pussy,” I said. “Come on, come out and get drunk with me. I’m your president, damn it, I can tell you what to do!”

“I don’t know,” Paul repeated. “Can’t you call Danny?”

I growled. Danny was at home, watching over Tori, but I couldn’t really tell Paul that. I knew that I’d have to tell the guys about my choice sooner or later, but right now didn’t seem like the best time. After all, Tori was a business deal. But she was also a liability, and I didn’t want to spook the guys so soon after Kristoff’s death.

Thinking about Kristoff put me in an even blacker mood. I had no idea how I was supposed to concentrate on everything that was going on, not with Tori hanging around and needing protection. She was something else, alright.

I wondered how many people in the club thought I was really responsible for Kristoff’s death.
Shit
.

“Come on, Paul,” I said. “I mean it. I won’t keep you out all night. I just need some company.”

“You’re so fuckin’ needy, Max,” Paul grumbled. He hung up the phone after telling me that he’d meet me in downtown Marquette in about an hour.

I swallowed hard. It was only a little after noon, and there was no fucking way I was going home, not for a few hours. Last night had been one of the most incredible fucks of my life, but being around Tori was really stressing me out. It wasn’t that I didn’t believe her when she’d told me about changing her number so many times, but it seemed unlikely that Silas was really as smart as she made him out to be. In the few times I’d seen him around town, he always seemed so fucking slow and dull-witted. I’d never thought of him as really dangerous before. When he and Tori were together, I barely saw her. Kristoff always took it real personally, but I knew now that Silas had likely worked hard to keep her away from the only family she had.

Thinking about that made me want to hunt him down like a dog and punch the shit out of him. He was such an asshole, thinking he could get away with treating Tori the way he had.

I need a fuckin’ drink
, I thought sourly.
I need to stop fuckin’ thinking about this shit over and over
.

I pointed my car in the direction of The Rusty Bucket and pressed hard on the gas. Ever since I’d patched in with the Renegade Saints, I didn’t have much use for bars. After all, we had a killer setup in our clubhouse. But sometimes, times like today, I couldn’t stand the idea of being around everyone.

The Rusty Bucket was good for days like these. The people who staffed the bar were old, the kind of people who didn’t pay attention to anything, and the whole bar smelled like mildew and stale beer. I’d heard it was a good place to pick up coke once, and I wouldn’t have exactly disbelieved it. My drug days were long behind me, but still, it was the kind of bar where one could feel truly anonymous.

“Give me a lager and a shot of whiskey,” I said to the aging bartender who took my order. She grinned at me with yellowing teeth. She was attractive for being in her mid-fifties, but she still dressed like a young bar wench, and I wondered when she’d last looked in a mirror.

“Got it, handsome,” she said, batting her eyelashes at me. When she was out of sight, I rolled my eyes. At least I wouldn’t be tempted to pick up any girls tonight.

Something was really bothering me, and I was starting to figure out that it didn’t have anything to do with Kristoff, or Tori. It had to do with Silas. I didn’t know much about him, aside from what Tori had told me, but he didn’t seem like the type of asshole who made a habit out of bothering women. In fact, he seemed like a fucking outcast from society in general. He and Tori had been together for years—what exactly had he been trying to do with her?

“Yo.” Paul’s familiar voice made me whirl around. “What’s up, man?” I stood up and we hugged, clapping a hand on each other’s back.

“Not a thing,” I lied. “Just been to see Maria.”

“Oh yeah?” Paul raised his eyebrows. “She still as fine as ever?”

I laughed. “It ain’t like that anymore,” I told him flatly. “That ship sailed a long time ago.”

Paul nodded. “I gotcha,” he said. “So…what was the deal?”

I sighed. I didn’t want to tell him about the note that I’d found at Kristoff’s house, not until I knew who was behind it. This whole thing was such a mess that I couldn’t really make heads or tails of it. I had no idea how much the other guys knew, if anything.

“Nothing,” I replied. “Just a social visit.”

Paul nodded. He looked down at my hands. “Did I miss something?” He pointed to the ring. “What happened?”

Shit. There goes that one
. “I got married,” I said with a grin. “You remember Kristoff’s daughter, Victoria?”

Paul nodded. A look of wonder came over his face. “Hell yes, I remember her,” he said. “She’s fuckin’ hot to trot. I’ve never seen anyone who looks as fine as she does!”

“I know,” I said drily. “She’s fuckin’ gorgeous. She came to me, asking for help, and this is the best way I can protect her.”

Paul nodded. “That happens a lot,” he said. For a moment, I wasn’t sure what he was talking about. “Her old boyfriend used to hit her,” he added.

“What the hell, man? How did you know that?”

Paul shrugged. “Common knowledge, man. Everyone knows that. I mean, they used to get into it in public sometimes. The few times I saw her, she was always with him, and always wearing sunglasses to cover some shiner on her eye.”

I blinked. Maybe the guys weren’t as oblivious as I’d first taken them to be. “I can’t believe you knew that,” I said. “I had no idea until she told me.”

“Come on,” Paul said sarcastically. “You really never paid attention? She didn’t even go to her own father’s funeral.”

I nodded. I had remembered that. It was one of the things I’d been meaning to ask Tori about, some time when we were alone. I knew that she and Kristoff hadn’t exactly been close, but I always wondered why. When he was leading the Renegade Saints, Kristoff had been a good man. Stern but solid, the kind of man you’d follow into battle.

“Yeah,” I said after a pause. “I guess I do remember that.”

“Yeah,” Paul echoed. The waitress brought over my beer and shot and Paul ordered the same. I waited until he was served, then we clinked together and knocked our drinks back.

“I’m feeling really weird about all of this,” I confessed. “Silas, that asshole, he keeps bugging her. She’s real afraid of him, too. She acts like he’s gonna break in and try to kill her while she’s in my house.”

Paul frowned. “He’s a crazy motherfucker, you know? She might not really be exaggerating, man.”

“Really? He’s gonna try to do shit to her even after she married me?”

Paul glanced away. “Did I ever tell you about what happened to my mom?”

I shook my head. “No,” I said. “What was it?”

Paul let out a long sigh. “My dad used to beat the shit out of her,” he said after a moment. “Like, every day. For no reason. He’d just get in that mood, and get that look in his eye, and go after her. She couldn’t even defend herself most of the time. She didn’t know how.” He took a long swallow of his beer and stared down at the dirty wooden bar. “She was just shocked.”

“And what happened?”

Paul held up a hand. “I ain’t done yet,” he snapped. “Shut up and listen.”

I nodded. “Sorry. Go on.”

“Well, when I was in high school, I asked her why she’d stuck around for so damn long. Like, if Pa beats you, why didn’t you just leave? Hell, why did you marry someone like that in the first place? And you know what? She said she didn’t know. She said she never had a reason for sticking with him.” Paul paused for another drink. When he continued, his voice was harsher than before. “I did some diggin’ around after she died. He beat her to death, you know. He beat her with a tire iron in the backyard and left her to die. She drowned in her own blood.” Paul sucked his teeth. “My uncle killed him,” he said. “He showed up with a shotgun and about blew his head off.”

I nodded. Somewhere, I remembered Paul telling me this story before. It was unusual for us to be talking this openly without being completely shitfaced; I was sure that before when I’d heard the story, I’d been so drunk that I couldn’t even stand up. Paul was one of the most reticent guys in the Saints, and he wasn’t prone to talking just to hear his own voice.

“Yeah, so I got to doin’ some research,” Paul said. “Started looking around for old shit that Mom had written. I didn’t find much, she met Pa when she was real young. But he pulled her away from everything she cared about, and her family. Her brother was the only damn person who bothered keeping in touch.” He swallowed hard. “That’s what assholes like my Pa do, Max. They cut a woman off from her support network. My mom knew exactly why she didn’t leave; she lied to me. She never left because she didn’t think she had anywhere to go.”

“What about your uncle? Wouldn’t he have taken you in?”

Paul shrugged. “She probably didn’t want to be a burden,” he said. “That was Mom’s way; always worried what other people were gonna say about her when she was gone.”

I nodded. “That’s a hell of a story. Damn, man.”

“Anyway,” Paul said. “There’s one more thing. Before he killed her, I think she knew she was gonna die. I think she knew that deep down, there was some connection, some thread that bound the two of them together. She hated him, sure, but part of her loved him because it was all she knew. She probably thought it was her destiny or some shit. She probably thought that it was the only way she’d ever die.”

I blinked. “What are you sayin’?”

“That if Silas got into Victoria’s head the same way my daddy did to Mom, no wonder she’s fuckin’ scared,” Paul said darkly. He threw his head back and poured the rest of his beer down his throat. “If I were her, I’d probably spend every minute of the day workin’ it over in my mind.”

“I hadn’t really thought about it like that,” I said. It frightened me to think of Tori not being able to leave Silas. It scared me to think that he might have killed her before she got the chance to run. I knew that Tori was a strong, impulsive woman. But even the strongest of people got beat down every now and then, and maybe it was only a matter of time before Silas really would have done something awful.

“She’s mine now,” I said suddenly, staring down at the ring on my hand. The ring gave me a chill, and for a second, I wondered if I’d made a mistake. The rings I’d used when Tori and I got married were the rings I’d had on hand when Talia died. Tori’s ring had been fitted to Talia. I was just glad that I hadn’t had them engraved. But still, it felt pretty fucking weird. I hadn’t worn the ring since Talia and I went to the jeweler and tried them on that day. Now, it felt like a part of her ghost was clinging on to me with every step that I took.

“She is,” Paul said in an appraising kind of voice. “Is that where Danny is? Watching her?”

“Yeah. She didn’t want me to leave her alone unless one of the guys was in the house with her. I thought she was being silly at the time, but now I’m fuckin’ glad that she insisted.”

Paul nodded. He had a dark look on his face. I wondered if he was thinking about his mother again. “Yeah,” he agreed.