“Where the fuck were you?!” he shouted. His saliva hit my face and around my mouth, tasting of alcohol and cigarettes.
“I was out with my friend!” I cried.
“Leave hur alun, Noman,” Mom slurred from behind him.
“Shut the fuck up, Joanne,” he growled. “This little slut thinks she can come and go as she wants wearin’ nothin’ but a fuckin’ see through top with her tits out to the world. Ain’t no daughter of mine is gonna do that shit! Ain’t no fuckin’ daughter of mine, you hear?”
I sobbed, feeling the cold tile numb my cheek.
“How old are you?!” he screamed.
“T-t-twelve,” I stuttered.
“Then you look like a fuckin’ twelve year old!”
“Take hur to the used shop,” slurred Mom again. “She might need mo’ clothes.”
Norman let go of me abruptly and turned in Mom’s direction. I hurriedly got up and watched as he grabbed her suddenly by the hair and dragged her off the couch. Surprisingly, she didn’t make a sound, but her eyes were bulging out of her skull as she waited for his strikes.
“Now why would I take her down to a shop that man owns?” he barked at her. His eyes had gone cold as blood as he brought her close to his face. “Or is that what you want? Answer me, bitch!”
Joanne shook her head cogently.
“Then shut your fat fucking head up.”
Joanne nodded adamantly, telling him over and over again that he was right.
I slipped by without his notice and hurried to my room all the while wondering how the mention of a man could make Norman erupt so suddenly.
Sixteen
Day three since I saw Jaxon at the park. And day three of awkward communication with Remy. He was looking for ways to keep busy, otherwise he’d be somewhere nearby watching me. During the day he’d go on “business” runs with the guys, and day two he returned with bloody knuckles and a “don’t ask” look on his face as he rushed to wash it off.
Day three he packed a bag and said he had another business run a few hours out of town and that he would be away for two nights. Without a kiss good bye, he left with most of the guys. I knew what some of these business runs entailed to, hearing it nonstop from Fritz who had currently passed out on the couch and missed out on going. Some of the things included partying, drinking hard and fucking women. Meanwhile the old ladies were followed around by whatever Jackal remained and kept carefully close. Fair, huh?
I was seeing things from a different light. My entire stay here had been an illusion of freedom. I knew without a doubt he’d never let me go. And what if I did have the choice? Well then… that’s what pissed me off the most. I didn’t know what I’d do. Would I stay? Would I go? Were my feelings for him real or the outcome of our forced inseparability all these months?
On my way to the kitchen that day, I ignored Rita’s dirty looks. Clearly she didn’t have a sense of smell sitting on the couch next to a passed out Fritz and reading a glamour magazine. She hadn’t talked to me since that barbecue, but her looks alone carried silent conversations of hate. Death to Sara, these looks said.
I placed two slices of bread in the toaster and waited patiently around the kitchen island.
It was while I was slapping a shit load of butter on my toast that an alarm unexpectedly sounded. It was a loud, screeching kind of alarm that had me throwing my hands over my ears. I vaguely heard screams…Then, to my horror, gun shots.
I abandoned my work of buttered art and cautiously stepped out of the kitchen. Remy had warned me about the alarms once. He said if I heard them to head to my room as soon as humanly possible. It sounded when there were intruders, and now for fucking certain I knew there were because the gun shots continued to sound in the near distance.
Heart in my throat, I hurried down the hall. I heard Barge hollering. “Get in your rooms NOW!”
Fear stilled me in my steps. I’d have to walk through the main room to get to the staircase to the bedroom. Fuck. What if the intruders were there? What other choice do you have?
I shakily rushed down the hallway and into the main room where Barge, Fritz, Broom and Vince were. They were spread out around the entrance doors, and Broom was unloading a duffel bag full of guns. I looked around the room, hastily searching for the threat.
“What’s going on?” I yelled over the alarm.
Barge turned to me and his face darkened. “Get in your fucking room, Sara!”
“Where are they?”
“Outside,” Broom answered me. “Within the walls.”
“Get in your room!” Barge repeated.
“Who are they?”
Barge, looking beyond pissed now, stalked toward me. He gripped me by the arm and then pushed me back roughly in the direction of the staircase.
“Get your ass up there right now,” he growled. “I’m not gonna be explaining to Remy that you died because you were too fuckin’ dense in the head to listen to one command.”
I gulped in surprise and nodded. “O-okay.”
“Lock your door.”
I turned around and hurried up to my room, so jumpy I ended up tripping once along the way.
What the fuck was a door going to do? If whoever was shooting got inside they’d just break the doors down. The one day most of the men aren’t around, shit has to hit the fan at the one place I thought we were safe in.
I ran aimlessly down the hallway, and when I reached my door, I halted immediately. The fear in me multiplied. There was a man with a balaclava mask on and a black gun in his hand. My footsteps had alerted him to me, and he turned around to face me. I tensed in terror and then took an uncoordinated step back, tripping over my feet. I fell hard on my ass, but the pain that rocketed up my tail bone was barely felt.
Screaming and hoping someone might hear was out of the question. The alarms were deafening, and even if I did scream, what might this man do to me?
I scurried back and he took a step forward. “Please, stop!” I whimpered. “Do what you came for. I won’t be in your way.”
He stopped suddenly and, to my surprise, threw the gun down on the floor. I looked down at it in confusion before returning my gaze to him. He brought a hand to his balaclava and pulled it all the way up.
My terror washed away in an instant, but my surprise only rose. Jaxon’s eyes raked me over slowly from where I lay and then he extended his hand out. I took it and he brought me up on my feet.
“What are you doing here?” I demanded. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”
This was really bad. He shouldn’t be here. There were cameras everywhere. How the fuck did he even get in? I stepped away from him until my back hit the wall next to my bedroom door.
“I came here for you,” he replied softly. “I told you I was going to make it right.”
“How is breaking into this place making things right?” I scolded him, fighting the urge to push him back at his stupidity. “You shouldn’t have taken your mask off. They’re going to kill you for this!”
“I wore my mask in case I didn’t bump into you. Now listen, we have one opportunity, Sara. Decision is yours. Either you come with me, or you don’t.”
Come with him? “How are we going to walk out of this?”
He smirked coolly. “You gotta trust me on this.”
This was crazy. There was no way. “Jaxon–”
“Decide now! You’ve got ten seconds, Sara. Do you want me or not?”
I felt sick to my stomach. This was too out of nowhere for me. I was just buttering toast, for fuck’s sake! My whole being was cut into half. Smirk long gone now, he put out his hand for me to take. I stared at it, dumbfounded and unsure. While everything in me pushed to take it, I couldn’t. I just stared at it thinking only of Remy and how wounded he would be if I did this. This kind of deception would be irreversible. There would be no going back.
I panted hard, resting a hand against my battering heart as he gazed into my eyes with determination. He’d done all this for me. He was risking his neck to have me.
“Do you want us?” he asked again. “Because I swear to God, Sara, there’s no going back after this. Once you’re mine, that’s it. So decide.”
A few seconds passed. My internal battle had stupefied me into silence. This was my hope coming to life: the decision to choose whether I wanted to stay or go. It was real, and it was happening right now. And yet I was terrified…
I couldn’t…
I couldn’t just…
The hope waned from his eyes and his hand wavered.
His next words were rougher than before. “Do you or do you not, Sara?”
Seventeen
Remy watched the footage about a dozen times. How could this have happened five hours ago under everyone’s noses? How did he even get into the clubhouse? Fucking Houdini.
They raked over every frame of every camera taken that morning. Nowhere on any frame did he see Jaxon slip by. The man just emerged out of nowhere on the second floor, as if he’d crept in through hidden places they didn’t even know were blind spots. Not only that, but he knew exactly where he was going. He marched down the long hallway until he was at Remy’s door. He opened it, peered in, and then shut it.
He was looking for her.
The whole shooting outside was a distraction from a few masked men who were mostly shooting up at the sky. No harm or destruction physically done, and it’d been over in fifteen minutes time.
Remy, continuing to watch the footage, gritted his teeth, his anger multiplying faster when Jaxon turned to find Sara running to her door. She fell back, and Remy could only imagine how terrified she must have been.
With the alarms going off, he could hear absolutely nothing in the video. He watched Sara take the douche’s hand, and then she was up, looking as if she was scolding him for something. They talked, but about what he couldn’t tell. He leaned closer to the screen, trying to lip read what Jaxon was saying. Shame their cameras were gritty and old. The quality was crap, but it wasn’t as though there’d ever been a reason to upgrade them within the walls of the clubhouse. Everyone here hated them as it was for intruding on their privacy. The only places they weren’t installed in were the bedrooms, and that pacified them just barely enough to be okay with their presence.
Remy knew this would change their minds altogether. The unexpected shoot out and Jaxon’s breaking and entering would result in upgrades of every single camera within the clubhouse and, for fuck’s sake, the alarms would not be so goddamn loud next time!
Next time, Remy scoffed. That wasn’t going to happen. He was going to sort this fucker out once and for all.
He bitterly watched as Jaxon extended his hand out for Sara again. He seemed to be adamant about something. Heart lurching in Remy’s chest, he watched as Sara shook her head. His Birdy shook her beautiful, amazing, faithful head! Looking dejected, Jaxon dropped his hand down, and then he spoke to her again. And once more, his Birdy shook her beautiful, amazing, faithful head! More words, and then Jaxon was gone, moving out of the frames and disappearing. On his own.
If Remy had not been around the other members, he might have cried. He’d known she loved Jaxon, and the extent had always terrified him. He always wondered if she would flee to him. Now he knew.
Remorse flooded him hard. After what he did to her… He gulped the knot in his throat. How could he have questioned her loyalty? Fuck, he was a piece of shit unworthy of her love. Love. Yes, love. She loved him. Loved him more than Jaxon. This footage was living, irrefutable proof of her loyalty.
Unable to hold back, he hurried out of the surveillance room, ignoring everyone’s calls. He rushed to where his Birdy was, sitting in the bed, wrapped in a ball. He approached her slowly and hesitantly. When her face came into view, he was delighted to find she wasn’t crying. Because crying might have meant she regretted not taking Jaxon’s hand. Instead, a look of fortitude adorned her face.
When she felt his presence, she looked at him. There was relief in her eyes when they connected with his, and that was his undoing. He collapsed to the ground and wrapped his arms around her waist, bringing her out of her ball and to the edge of the bed. He sank his head into her lap and shook with the happiness and gratitude he felt for her.
Always he’d been alone. Until her.
Her hands raked through his thick hair and then she held him for dear life. After some time, he looked up at her, hardly able to control his emotions when he stated, “I love you more than anything in this world.”
Her lips quivered and a single tear fell from her eyes. “I-I love you, Remy.”
He wiped the tear before it reached the bottom of her face. “I’m so sorry for questioning you. For–”
“Don’t,” she whispered with a shake of her head.
“It couldn’t have been easy for you saying… saying no to him.”
“Sometimes the pain is worth enduring,” she responded quietly.
He took her face in both his hands and kissed her. These were the lips he could never grow tired of. The lips that he now knew cherished him as much as he cherished her. The lips that belonged to a woman he would love until his last breath. He was going to marry this woman and, fuck, as much as he hated kids, he wanted them with her. He wanted a dozen little Sara Nolans running around with pouty lips; who cried at the drop of a hat; who poured out their every emotion because they sucked at hiding them; who watched shitty movies and listened to even shittier music. He wanted it all. Enough to walk away from the fucking Jackals and move someplace quiet to start over again. Because what kind of father and husband sold drugs and killed druggies? He wanted to change. She made him want to be a fucking superhero.
“I was out with my friend!” I cried.
“Leave hur alun, Noman,” Mom slurred from behind him.
“Shut the fuck up, Joanne,” he growled. “This little slut thinks she can come and go as she wants wearin’ nothin’ but a fuckin’ see through top with her tits out to the world. Ain’t no daughter of mine is gonna do that shit! Ain’t no fuckin’ daughter of mine, you hear?”
I sobbed, feeling the cold tile numb my cheek.
“How old are you?!” he screamed.
“T-t-twelve,” I stuttered.
“Then you look like a fuckin’ twelve year old!”
“Take hur to the used shop,” slurred Mom again. “She might need mo’ clothes.”
Norman let go of me abruptly and turned in Mom’s direction. I hurriedly got up and watched as he grabbed her suddenly by the hair and dragged her off the couch. Surprisingly, she didn’t make a sound, but her eyes were bulging out of her skull as she waited for his strikes.
“Now why would I take her down to a shop that man owns?” he barked at her. His eyes had gone cold as blood as he brought her close to his face. “Or is that what you want? Answer me, bitch!”
Joanne shook her head cogently.
“Then shut your fat fucking head up.”
Joanne nodded adamantly, telling him over and over again that he was right.
I slipped by without his notice and hurried to my room all the while wondering how the mention of a man could make Norman erupt so suddenly.
Sixteen
Day three since I saw Jaxon at the park. And day three of awkward communication with Remy. He was looking for ways to keep busy, otherwise he’d be somewhere nearby watching me. During the day he’d go on “business” runs with the guys, and day two he returned with bloody knuckles and a “don’t ask” look on his face as he rushed to wash it off.
Day three he packed a bag and said he had another business run a few hours out of town and that he would be away for two nights. Without a kiss good bye, he left with most of the guys. I knew what some of these business runs entailed to, hearing it nonstop from Fritz who had currently passed out on the couch and missed out on going. Some of the things included partying, drinking hard and fucking women. Meanwhile the old ladies were followed around by whatever Jackal remained and kept carefully close. Fair, huh?
I was seeing things from a different light. My entire stay here had been an illusion of freedom. I knew without a doubt he’d never let me go. And what if I did have the choice? Well then… that’s what pissed me off the most. I didn’t know what I’d do. Would I stay? Would I go? Were my feelings for him real or the outcome of our forced inseparability all these months?
On my way to the kitchen that day, I ignored Rita’s dirty looks. Clearly she didn’t have a sense of smell sitting on the couch next to a passed out Fritz and reading a glamour magazine. She hadn’t talked to me since that barbecue, but her looks alone carried silent conversations of hate. Death to Sara, these looks said.
I placed two slices of bread in the toaster and waited patiently around the kitchen island.
It was while I was slapping a shit load of butter on my toast that an alarm unexpectedly sounded. It was a loud, screeching kind of alarm that had me throwing my hands over my ears. I vaguely heard screams…Then, to my horror, gun shots.
I abandoned my work of buttered art and cautiously stepped out of the kitchen. Remy had warned me about the alarms once. He said if I heard them to head to my room as soon as humanly possible. It sounded when there were intruders, and now for fucking certain I knew there were because the gun shots continued to sound in the near distance.
Heart in my throat, I hurried down the hall. I heard Barge hollering. “Get in your rooms NOW!”
Fear stilled me in my steps. I’d have to walk through the main room to get to the staircase to the bedroom. Fuck. What if the intruders were there? What other choice do you have?
I shakily rushed down the hallway and into the main room where Barge, Fritz, Broom and Vince were. They were spread out around the entrance doors, and Broom was unloading a duffel bag full of guns. I looked around the room, hastily searching for the threat.
“What’s going on?” I yelled over the alarm.
Barge turned to me and his face darkened. “Get in your fucking room, Sara!”
“Where are they?”
“Outside,” Broom answered me. “Within the walls.”
“Get in your room!” Barge repeated.
“Who are they?”
Barge, looking beyond pissed now, stalked toward me. He gripped me by the arm and then pushed me back roughly in the direction of the staircase.
“Get your ass up there right now,” he growled. “I’m not gonna be explaining to Remy that you died because you were too fuckin’ dense in the head to listen to one command.”
I gulped in surprise and nodded. “O-okay.”
“Lock your door.”
I turned around and hurried up to my room, so jumpy I ended up tripping once along the way.
What the fuck was a door going to do? If whoever was shooting got inside they’d just break the doors down. The one day most of the men aren’t around, shit has to hit the fan at the one place I thought we were safe in.
I ran aimlessly down the hallway, and when I reached my door, I halted immediately. The fear in me multiplied. There was a man with a balaclava mask on and a black gun in his hand. My footsteps had alerted him to me, and he turned around to face me. I tensed in terror and then took an uncoordinated step back, tripping over my feet. I fell hard on my ass, but the pain that rocketed up my tail bone was barely felt.
Screaming and hoping someone might hear was out of the question. The alarms were deafening, and even if I did scream, what might this man do to me?
I scurried back and he took a step forward. “Please, stop!” I whimpered. “Do what you came for. I won’t be in your way.”
He stopped suddenly and, to my surprise, threw the gun down on the floor. I looked down at it in confusion before returning my gaze to him. He brought a hand to his balaclava and pulled it all the way up.
My terror washed away in an instant, but my surprise only rose. Jaxon’s eyes raked me over slowly from where I lay and then he extended his hand out. I took it and he brought me up on my feet.
“What are you doing here?” I demanded. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”
This was really bad. He shouldn’t be here. There were cameras everywhere. How the fuck did he even get in? I stepped away from him until my back hit the wall next to my bedroom door.
“I came here for you,” he replied softly. “I told you I was going to make it right.”
“How is breaking into this place making things right?” I scolded him, fighting the urge to push him back at his stupidity. “You shouldn’t have taken your mask off. They’re going to kill you for this!”
“I wore my mask in case I didn’t bump into you. Now listen, we have one opportunity, Sara. Decision is yours. Either you come with me, or you don’t.”
Come with him? “How are we going to walk out of this?”
He smirked coolly. “You gotta trust me on this.”
This was crazy. There was no way. “Jaxon–”
“Decide now! You’ve got ten seconds, Sara. Do you want me or not?”
I felt sick to my stomach. This was too out of nowhere for me. I was just buttering toast, for fuck’s sake! My whole being was cut into half. Smirk long gone now, he put out his hand for me to take. I stared at it, dumbfounded and unsure. While everything in me pushed to take it, I couldn’t. I just stared at it thinking only of Remy and how wounded he would be if I did this. This kind of deception would be irreversible. There would be no going back.
I panted hard, resting a hand against my battering heart as he gazed into my eyes with determination. He’d done all this for me. He was risking his neck to have me.
“Do you want us?” he asked again. “Because I swear to God, Sara, there’s no going back after this. Once you’re mine, that’s it. So decide.”
A few seconds passed. My internal battle had stupefied me into silence. This was my hope coming to life: the decision to choose whether I wanted to stay or go. It was real, and it was happening right now. And yet I was terrified…
I couldn’t…
I couldn’t just…
The hope waned from his eyes and his hand wavered.
His next words were rougher than before. “Do you or do you not, Sara?”
Seventeen
Remy watched the footage about a dozen times. How could this have happened five hours ago under everyone’s noses? How did he even get into the clubhouse? Fucking Houdini.
They raked over every frame of every camera taken that morning. Nowhere on any frame did he see Jaxon slip by. The man just emerged out of nowhere on the second floor, as if he’d crept in through hidden places they didn’t even know were blind spots. Not only that, but he knew exactly where he was going. He marched down the long hallway until he was at Remy’s door. He opened it, peered in, and then shut it.
He was looking for her.
The whole shooting outside was a distraction from a few masked men who were mostly shooting up at the sky. No harm or destruction physically done, and it’d been over in fifteen minutes time.
Remy, continuing to watch the footage, gritted his teeth, his anger multiplying faster when Jaxon turned to find Sara running to her door. She fell back, and Remy could only imagine how terrified she must have been.
With the alarms going off, he could hear absolutely nothing in the video. He watched Sara take the douche’s hand, and then she was up, looking as if she was scolding him for something. They talked, but about what he couldn’t tell. He leaned closer to the screen, trying to lip read what Jaxon was saying. Shame their cameras were gritty and old. The quality was crap, but it wasn’t as though there’d ever been a reason to upgrade them within the walls of the clubhouse. Everyone here hated them as it was for intruding on their privacy. The only places they weren’t installed in were the bedrooms, and that pacified them just barely enough to be okay with their presence.
Remy knew this would change their minds altogether. The unexpected shoot out and Jaxon’s breaking and entering would result in upgrades of every single camera within the clubhouse and, for fuck’s sake, the alarms would not be so goddamn loud next time!
Next time, Remy scoffed. That wasn’t going to happen. He was going to sort this fucker out once and for all.
He bitterly watched as Jaxon extended his hand out for Sara again. He seemed to be adamant about something. Heart lurching in Remy’s chest, he watched as Sara shook her head. His Birdy shook her beautiful, amazing, faithful head! Looking dejected, Jaxon dropped his hand down, and then he spoke to her again. And once more, his Birdy shook her beautiful, amazing, faithful head! More words, and then Jaxon was gone, moving out of the frames and disappearing. On his own.
If Remy had not been around the other members, he might have cried. He’d known she loved Jaxon, and the extent had always terrified him. He always wondered if she would flee to him. Now he knew.
Remorse flooded him hard. After what he did to her… He gulped the knot in his throat. How could he have questioned her loyalty? Fuck, he was a piece of shit unworthy of her love. Love. Yes, love. She loved him. Loved him more than Jaxon. This footage was living, irrefutable proof of her loyalty.
Unable to hold back, he hurried out of the surveillance room, ignoring everyone’s calls. He rushed to where his Birdy was, sitting in the bed, wrapped in a ball. He approached her slowly and hesitantly. When her face came into view, he was delighted to find she wasn’t crying. Because crying might have meant she regretted not taking Jaxon’s hand. Instead, a look of fortitude adorned her face.
When she felt his presence, she looked at him. There was relief in her eyes when they connected with his, and that was his undoing. He collapsed to the ground and wrapped his arms around her waist, bringing her out of her ball and to the edge of the bed. He sank his head into her lap and shook with the happiness and gratitude he felt for her.
Always he’d been alone. Until her.
Her hands raked through his thick hair and then she held him for dear life. After some time, he looked up at her, hardly able to control his emotions when he stated, “I love you more than anything in this world.”
Her lips quivered and a single tear fell from her eyes. “I-I love you, Remy.”
He wiped the tear before it reached the bottom of her face. “I’m so sorry for questioning you. For–”
“Don’t,” she whispered with a shake of her head.
“It couldn’t have been easy for you saying… saying no to him.”
“Sometimes the pain is worth enduring,” she responded quietly.
He took her face in both his hands and kissed her. These were the lips he could never grow tired of. The lips that he now knew cherished him as much as he cherished her. The lips that belonged to a woman he would love until his last breath. He was going to marry this woman and, fuck, as much as he hated kids, he wanted them with her. He wanted a dozen little Sara Nolans running around with pouty lips; who cried at the drop of a hat; who poured out their every emotion because they sucked at hiding them; who watched shitty movies and listened to even shittier music. He wanted it all. Enough to walk away from the fucking Jackals and move someplace quiet to start over again. Because what kind of father and husband sold drugs and killed druggies? He wanted to change. She made him want to be a fucking superhero.
