Meant To Be (Heaven Hill Series) (28 page)

William hissed as he saw everyone behind his son walk out of the meeting. “Shit.”

Meredith lay in Tyler’s bed trying to convince herself to get up. She’d lain in bed for hours, and it hadn’t made her feel any different. She thought that maybe it would make her feel better if she got up and walked around a little bit. Maybe it would lift some of the heavy blanket that felt like it was pressing against her chest. As she contemplated the type of energy it would take in order to do that, the door opened and Tyler walked in.

“I didn’t scare you did I?” he asked, walking over to the closet.

She shook her head, shy around him. Why, she wasn’t sure, but she couldn’t bring herself to look at him. Interested, she watched as he began pulling weapons out of a trunk in the closet and put on a bullet proof vest.

“Where are you going?” she asked quietly. She had never seen someone other than a soldier casually strap on that much armor before. It scared her, and it made her wonder just what in the hell was going on. What had happened in the time she had been out?

He leveled her with a gaze, his brown eyes serious as she had ever seen them. “Some asshole has Denise. We’re going to get her back. Hopefully we’ll get to her before he can do to her what was done to you.”

Shame rolled through her body, and she ducked her head. Nobody should have to live through that and she wanted to tell him that, but she couldn’t bring herself to talk to him. The only thing she could bring herself to do was say a little prayer for her friend and hope that whoever this was would have mercy on her.

“We’ll be back later,” he told her.

Taking out a gun, he checked the chamber and safety. “If someone who is not a part of this club tries to come through that door, you shoot first, ask questions later. Do you understand me? All you gotta do is click the safety off. There’s one in the chamber.” He flipped it over in her hand to show her how to take the safety off and then laid it on the bed next to her.

She nodded as she picked it up, weighing the heaviness of the gun in her hand. She watched as he left and then had a seat Indian style on the bed. This was the one thing she
could
do. This time she could protect herself if worst came to worst. For the first time in her life, she knew that she wouldn’t hesitate to put another human being down if it came to that. It gave her a power that she needed, and she knew that she would do whatever she had to.

“I figured your old man would be here by now,” Richard taunted Denise as she sat tied up in a chair. He sat on a chair directly across from her. He was straddling the back, feigning indifference as he loosely held a gun in his hands, but she could tell by the bunching of his shoulder muscles that he was beginning to feel nervous.

In truth she had too, but she wasn’t worried. “I’m sure he’s trying to think of the most interesting way to kill you,” she smiled her most bitchy smile at him.

“He’ll have to come here first, won’t he? Maybe he’s decided that you aren’t worth it. How does that make you feel?” Richard couldn’t help but needle her. Liam Walker had never been able to commit to just one woman, and Richard couldn’t see him doing it now either. Not with
this
woman.

“I’m fine, at least I didn’t get kicked out of my club,” she taunted him in return.

That stung. She really was a bitch. “Shut your damn mouth,” he growled as he backhanded her across the face with the butt of his gun.

“You’re really gonna wish you hadn’t done that,” she told him, spitting out blood that was already pouring into her mouth from where she had bitten her lip.

He leaned the chair forward so that they were nose to nose. “You’re gonna wish you’d never gotten involved with the Heaven Hill MC.” He raised his hand to hit her again when the door exploded and members of the club rushed through, guns blazing.

Liam, throwing caution to the wind, ran over to where Richard hovered above her and grabbed him by the collar of the shirt, rocking the chair so far back that Richard’s head almost hit the concrete floor. “You are a miserable piece of shit, you son of a bitch.”

“Now, Liam, I have a business proposition for you. I just need some cash to help get it off the ground.” Richard held his hands up in surrender and had the nerve to laugh, letting the gun fall to the ground.

Grinning at the older man, Liam made sure his fist connected with Richard’s face. It felt good to cause him pain, it felt gratifying as his knuckles cracked over the bones in Richard’s body. “This is where you can take your damn business proposition.”

For long minutes, the two of them beat the absolute shit out of each other while Tyler freed Denise. She shrieked as Richard landed a blow to Liam’s ribs.

“Let them go. He’s got it coming to him after this,” he said calmly, holding her back.

She watched as Liam got the upper hand and then picked up the older man, slamming him face first into a concrete wall. Liam was strong, but she had no idea he was
that
strong. It was amazing what adrenaline did for someone.

“Did you get rid of it, or when I rip this shirt off of you are you going to still have it?” Liam spat, breathing heavily, blood spilling from his mouth.

It struck Denise that they had matching battle wounds. Surely that proved to everyone just how serious she was about this man.

Richard groaned, rolling his head around on his shoulders. Liam ripped the shirt from his body and showed the rest of the club what Richard hadn’t gotten rid of. He still wore the tattoos of the Heaven Hill MC. The sleeves covered his arms.

Liam slapped his back, his gloved hands making the sound muted. “Don’t worry, Dickey boy, we’ll take care of you.”

Tyler handed Denise over to a Prospect. “Get her out of here.”

“What are they going to do?” she asked the Prospect, Layne she thought was his name.

“Get back their respect and then take care of the problem,” he told her softly. He had never been present at anything like that, but he knew the code of the club and he knew just how bad of a deal it was that Richard still wore the ink.

“They’re going to kill him?”

“Only after he wishes he was already dead,” Layne confirmed, leading her out of the building and to a waiting van so that she wouldn’t see anything.

He immediately took her back to the clubhouse, where Drew and Mandy stood, their arms wrapped around one another. Tears clogged Denise’s throat as she caught sight of the worry on their faces. She hadn’t meant to cause that worry – had never meant for any of this to happen.

“Mom,” Mandy screamed as she ran to the van, helping Denise open the door. All Denise could do was open her arms and let the girl fall into them. In his own stoic way, Drew stood to the side, waiting for the emotions of the girls to die down. Much like he had done his whole life, he waited until there was an opening and then he put his arms around the both of them, holding them tightly.

As she looked at her children, she was excited to know that she would be around to see them grow up. However, at the same time, Denise felt sorrow, but not for the man who had done so many bad things to other people. She felt sorrow because she assumed the identity of Meredith’s rapist died with this man. It hurt her heart that they would never get revenge for her, but she couldn’t say that this man didn’t deserve to die. With him, maybe old hurts and secrets would go too. Maybe now they could all start anew.

Chapter Thirty

T
he sun was just beginning to break the horizon as Liam walked out of the warehouse that Denise had been held in. In his nostrils, he could still smell the burning flesh that had been Richard Joyce. When a member decided not to get rid of his ink after leaving the club, the club did it for him. This particular time, Liam had taken great pleasure in cutting the ink up into sections and then burning it off. He would be lying if he didn’t admit that it had felt good and that’s what worried him.

For the first time in his life, Liam felt bad about what he had done in the name of his club. He felt as if he wasn’t worthy enough to go home and sleep with the woman who warmed up the other side of his bed. He worried that she would look at him differently. Hell, he knew after this he would look at himself different. Never before had he felt such euphoria as he had done something so heinous. It scared him in a way – he didn’t want to be
that
man.

“You okay?” Tyler asked as he tipped a bottle of water over their hands, trying to clean as much blood off them as they could before the ride back to the clubhouse.

“Yeah, but I’m feeling some remorse – not for killing him – but how is Denise going to look at me now? And I felt
good
doing that. What does that say about me?” Liam ran his hands down his jeans, rubbing some of the water off.

Tyler, intelligent as always, leveled him with a stare. “She knew who you were when she got into this relationship with you.”

Liam knew that Tyler spoke the truth, but he also knew that it was easy to overlook truths as long as they weren’t staring you in the face. She had been witness to this first hand tonight.

“I know, but I hated doing that in front of her. I feel like she knows me as one way when I’m with her, but when I’m with you guys I turn into a different person. Things that shouldn’t feel right do, and that’s scary for someone who trusts me with her children. I can’t even say I’m comfortable with the animal that came out of me tonight,” Liam admitted. With Tyler he knew that he could be completely honest without repercussion.

“None of us felt good about it. At one time he was a friend, a brother, but we have to do what we have to do sometimes. In those hours that we did that, had he admitted to being behind Meredith’s rape, I would have snapped and broken his neck. Without thought. Without a doubt. Without remorse. We are who we are brother, there’s a little bit of warrior in all of us. That makes us who we are.” Tyler always knew what to say, almost like he knew what Liam was going to say before he said it.

“This is the first time I’ve ever had to worry about what a woman would say. It’s really the first time I’ve worried what anyone would say. I’m trying to keep a part of myself while I try to be what this club needs, but I worry that I’m in a losing battle. I don’t want her to look at me with fear in her eyes. That’s the last thing I want.”