Wrath (Dirty Soul MC: Long Beach #2)

Chapter 15

I sit on my bed shaking as I recall every part of the night that destroyed us. What Cliff put us through was cruel and vindictive, it was humiliating and scary. But what happened in that room isn’t what broke me.

It was the ride home.

“Aaron, speak to me,” I beg, as he pulls away from the warehouse and the tires screech. We’re both still shaking, and his eyes are focused on the road ahead of him like he’s been possessed.

“ Aaron, please! ” I cry out, desperate for us to talk about what just happened. “At least fucking look at me.” I wipe my tears and try not to think about all the bad things that could have happened. There was a time back there when I thought we’d both end up dead. “It could have been much wor–”

“Don’t say that, don’t say it could have been worse.” He grips the steering wheel tight as he heads in the direction of his houseboat.

“Aaron, those men were gonna rap–”

“ Stop! ” he yells at me, scrubbing his hand over his face in frustration. I can see there is no chance of me getting through to him, so I rest back in my seat and let the tears flow while he continues to drive. There’s a long, heavy silence between us until he pulls up at the marina and when I go to open my door and get out, he stops me. “Stay here, I won’t be long.” He gets out and rushes down the wharf and I watch the rain pelt against the windshield while I wait for him.

I’m sore, I’m tired, and I can’t even think about what my parents will think when I get home. I’m going to have to come up with an excuse for being so late, and for the mess I’m in.

Eventually, Aaron comes back and as he jumps inside the cage, I notice him place a holdall on the seat between us.

“Where are we going?” I ask as he pulls out of the marina and starts heading toward my place.“Aaron, I don’t think I can leave here tonight, I’ll need longer to talk with my parents. Maybe, if we go to New York I can still take that scholarship. I can work in the evenings and on weekends, you could find a good trainer.” He says nothing, just keeps focusing on the road as the rain continues to hammer at the glass. The way he’s closing himself off is really starting to scare me.

“Aaron, you haven’t looked at me since we left, please, look at me.” I want to scream and shake him. Right now, he’s really freaking me out. Yet despite my pleading, he still doesn’t respond.

I look out the window and let everything that happened tonight sink in. I lost my virginity to the man I love in front of eight other men, eight men who all probably know my brother and my birth father. I don’t know what Aaron is gonna tell my brother when he visits him tomorrow, but it can’t be the truth. Raze will already be pissed off at the fact he’s in prison, and him being inside means he can’t do anything about this anyway. I don’t want him to have to worry. I keep looking out the window to avoid how angry and broken Aaron looks, and when we pull up at the top of my street and he cuts his engine, we both sit in a long, awkward silence watching the windscreen wipers clear the rain.

“Ya have to leave town.” Aaron eventually speaks up, his voice sounding weak and raspy while his eyes still refuse to look at me.

“Yes, that’s what we’ll do, we’ll leave town. I just nee–”

“Ya not hearin’ me, Eden.” He shakes his head and tenses his jaw. “ You need to get outta town, get as far away from this place and the club as ya can, go to a state where we don’t have a charter. My dad has more men involved than I thought, his reach is bigger than a Long Beach.

“Aaron, I can’t just leave, I have a family here. I’ve got you.” I take his hand in mine and feel a prickle in my chest when he closes his eyes like my words just hurt him.

“Ya have a scholarship, you need to take it,” He picks up the holdall that’s between us and dumps it on my lap. “There's enough money in there to keep ya in accommodation for your first year, I’ll figure somethin’ out for the second,” he explains, detaching himself further and further away from me.

“Aaron, no… I don’t want your money, I want to be with you. If we leave we leave together.” Now I’m really starting to panic.

“ I’m what got ya into this mess, Eden.” He turns to look at me and the way hurt and anger merge together in his eyes makes him look dangerous. “How can you say that when I just had to..” He gags on the words he can’t get out and I quickly shake my head at him.

“You can’t blame yourself for this, this is all your dad’s fault. He’s evil and he’s cruel and I won’t let him break us.”

“Eden, there can never be an us . I can’t offer you a life. How can I protect ya from danger, when I am the danger?”

“Aaro–”

“Eden, I just had to fuck ya in front of eight men!” He slams his hand into the steering wheel.“Eight men you would never have come in contact with if ya weren’t important to me. I should have fought.” He shakes his head like he’s disappointed with himself.

“ Fought?! There were eight of them, you had no chance.” I try and make him see some sense.

“I’ve never backed down from a fight before, and I promised Raze I’d take care of ya.”

“And that's what you did, you did what you had to do…we both did,” I remind him, feeling desperate and completely out of control.

“I’ll never make ya happy.” He keeps shaking his head and I feel him slipping further and further away from me. “I was stupid to think that I ever could. You deserve to get everythin’ good outta this world and with me, all you're ever gonna get is the bad.” His eyes narrow as if he’s just realized something. “Those fuckers used you as my initiation. I’ll get my patch now. I’m a fuckin’ Soul.” The thought seems to unnerve him. “It was all I ever wanted… Until I met you.” He looks back across at me and frowns. “Tonight was his way of making me realize that I can’t have both.”

He looks like he’s gonna cry, I’ve never seen him look so weak. I can’t bear it.

“Then choose me,” I beg, gripping his hand tight. “We can ? —”

“It’s not a fuckin’ choice, Eden, not when your dad is Cliff Adams. I’ll never be free, and even if I could be, you’d never be safe. Club life is the only one I’ve ever known. There are other charters I can go to, but I can’t walk away completely, he’d never let it be that easy for me.”

“Aaron, I love you. I’ll come with you wherever you go, just please don’t leave me.”

“Don’t ya see that tonight was just the start of what your future could hold? If you’re somethin’ that matters to me, then you're somethin’ he can use. I won’t put you in danger like that again.” He’s got a stern look on his face. “Take the money. Take the scholarship, and forget I ever existed.” The anger in his eyes has turned to pain.

“Don’t do this,” I plead with him.

“Get out the truck, Eden.” He goes back to staring in front of him

“Aar–”

“ Get out! ” he bellows.

“I can’t, I love you too much.” I try so hard to make him understand. and with a deep, heavy growl he gets out the truck, rounds the hood and flings open my door. I put up a fight when he drags me out of the seat, into the rain, then reaching in and grabbing the holdall, he takes the strap and slides it over my head. I’m about to argue when he grabs hold of my face and kisses me, the same way he did that very first time on the beach, and just for those few perfect seconds, all the horrors of what just happened disappear. The rain isn’t cold, or wet, my body isn’t sore, and there’s no pain in my heart.

“And I love you more,” he stares at me, giving me the opportunity to see how much he’s hurting before he releases me and backs away.

“Aaron,” I call out his name as he heads back toward the driver's side of the truck. “ Aaron! ” I scream louder but he acts like he doesn’t hear me as he slams the door of the truck and drives away. I stand in the middle of the street and watch him put more and more distance between us and suddenly the rain feels colder than ever. All the pain is back and I feel it settling inside my soul when I realize he isn’t coming back.

A loud thump on the door makes me jump and after I scurry up off the bed and open it, Aaron stands on the other side looking worried.

“You ok—” I don’t give him a chance to finish his sentence. I grab him by the front of his tee and drag him inside, slamming my lips onto his and kissing him the same way he did before he left me.

“You came.” I pull away for air as I drag him over to the bed.

“‘Course, I came, you said you needed me.” I get back to kissing him, then shove him hard in the shoulder so his ass drops onto the mattress and I can climb on top of him.

“Whoah, slow down, what's all this about?” he rests back on his hands and puts on the brakes.

“It’s about you and me. I shouldn’t have gotten mad at you earlier, you were just protecting me, and I…I love you for that.” I let out the words I’ve been holding in since I came back. “I hated you for leaving me, Aaron. But I never stopped loving you. I tried. I tried real hard, but I couldn’t.” I grab the hem of his tee and go to lift it off his head but he stops me.

“Wait, it’s not supposed to be like this.” He seems unnerved as he pulls back on me again.

“Aaron, we can’t spend our lives waiting for that perfect moment, look what happened last time we tried that. The way I see it, we both somehow made our way back here to where it all started, and that’s gotta stand for something.” I go to kiss him again, and he humiliates me further, by grabbing hold of my arms and flipping me so I’m in his place.

“Eden, nothin’s changed. My father’s still out there, he’s still a threat and I can promise that he’ll be determined to destroy everythin’ that matters to me. I will not let him destroy you again.” He shakes his head in frustration and suddenly all I feel is rage.

“He didn’t destroy me.” I laugh as I stand back up on my feet and force him to step back. “What happened in that warehouse was awful, but I handled it, and do you know how?” I feel tears stinging the back of my eyes. “I handled it because I had you. You were right there with me and I knew I could handle anything as long as you were there. You destroyed me when you left me to handle everything by myself.” The words are out, and I can tell they hit him like a ten-ton truck from the way he stares back at me.

His chest is rising and falling, like his lungs are working too fast and I wonder if he’s finally starting to understand.

“You left town, you never told me where you were going.” I’ve ripped the Band-Aid off and now he’s gonna hear it all. “I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t sleep. My parents couldn’t let me go to college in the state I was in. I came to the club every day and begged whoever was on the gate to tell me where you were. Do you hear what I’m telling you, Aaron?” I step into his space. “I came back to this club, despite what those men did to me because nothing in this world scared me more than losing you.” His nostrils flare the way they always do when he’s mad, but I’m not done. It’s time that Aaron Adams knew the truth.

“A week after you left town, me and my parents came back from having dinner and found my cat on the porch with his throat slit. Three days after that, they both got killed in a car wreck. I was alone for all of that,” I watch his eyes swell with more fury. “And I was alone when your father, and his sick friends, came for me again.” The silence is deafening when I clue him in on just how bad things really got.

“ What? ” Aaron looks horrified and confused all at the same time.

“It was a couple of days after my parents' funeral, they came for me and they took me to a house in the middle of nowhere. Each one of them used me, they fucked me, Aaron. Over and over again until I stopped bothering to cry or beg them to stop.”

“ No. ” Aaron shakes his head and starts backing away toward the door.

“It must have gone on for weeks, maybe months. I lost track of anything humane. They treated me like an animal. Then one night Cliff brought Stacey home from the club. I thought she was too wasted to remember who I was, but she must have because she was the one who called my Dad.” I feel myself getting more and more angry when I think about him. “Why did he send Jimmer, Aaron? Why couldn't he come and take care of me himself?” I ask, allowing my tears to flow freely when all that anger runs out and all I feel is hurt.

“Because he’s a coward, just like I was,” He admits, looking every bit as mad at himself as he did before he left me. “I had no idea about your folks, when I heard you’d died all I focused on was blamin’ myself.” He scratches his hand through his stubble and I can see him starting to lose control. “He…he took you to the house?” He frowns in disgust.

“It was all a sick game to him, Aaron. He’d make me call out your name and scre…” I stop myself talking when I notice the effect this is having on him.

“What about Mac, and Rex, did they?”

“They all did.” I lower my head, knowing that it’s not what he’s gonna want to hear.

“Did you tell Jimmer Carson all this?” he checks.

“I couldn’t. The night Jimmer came to town, Cliff came back to the house and said he’d let me go. He told me that if I breathed a word to Jimmer or anyone else, about what had happened, Raze would kill you.”

“ Fuck !” Aaron’s breathing gets heavier and his eyes well up with tears.

“Jimmer must have suspected something, he asked me over and over if Cliff had hurt me and I denied it. I told him nothing because, even after you broke my heart, I still couldn’t bear the thought of anything happening to you.”

“Eden.” My name comes out of his mouth feebly, as he shakes his head in disbelief.

“Stacey must have sensed something was up and she called Vex. She saved me.” I manage a smile.

“If she’d told your father what happened. Cliff would be dead, trust me.” He assures me.

“I guess she told him exactly what she thought she saw, a broken girl being shared by three bikers. She didn’t know my story, until years later. I lied to Jimmer and told him that I was there by choice. I pretended I had an addiction to drugs just like Stacey did and he bought it.”

“You shouldn’t have had to do that. You should have got the proper help ya needed.”

“I did get the help I needed. Jimmer must have known Cliff was dangerous because the new identity idea was his, he fixed me up with a family in Utah, got me a pass into college and I was free.”

“How could all this have happened without me knowing?” Aaron looks devastated.

“Because your father’s a clever man.” I shrug sadly.

“Why did ya come back? Beverly Hills ain’t far enough away, even with a new name. You could have seen.”

“I knew when I came to Beverly Hills I was taking a huge risk. I told myself it was because of the job and the Collards. But, now I’m realizing that was because of you. I missed you and just like I kept coming back here after that night in the warehouse, I didn’t care about the danger. I couldn’t stay away.” I try to close the gap between us but Aaron holds up his hands to stop me.

“I need to speak to Raze, does he know about this?”

“I made Stacey promise not to tell him. I didn’t want him blaming himself, and I needed to protect you.”

Aaron looks me up and down as if I’m crazy and when he reaches behind him for the door handle, I panic.

“Aaron, please don’t leave,” I beg him.

“Lock the door, okay?” He tries to hide the tremble in his voice as he opens the door.

“Aaron, don’t leave. I know what I've told you is hard to hear, but we can move on from it.”

“Lock the door.” He tries pulling it together, but he looks far too disturbed as he steps out onto the balcony.

“Aaron, don’t run away from me again.” I go to chase after him, but he slams the door, making it clear it’s not what he wants. I thought I’d grown stronger over the years we spent apart. I thought I had no heart left to break. I was wrong.