Chapter 12

CHAPTER 12

ARIES

“The fuck were you thinking?” It’s the first thing out of my mouth when I see Kevlar.

I’d gotten a call from not just Viper and Cyprus filling me in, but Mace called to inform me of the shitshow that went down at the clubhouse. Even my sister had called tattling on his ass. This didn’t even include the texts from the others.

“What the hell did you expect me to do? I get back and find out that Rory is at the clubhouse. So, I fuckin’ lost it knowing what she did, how it was for you when you got that damn letter from her,” Kevlar grunts, shakes his head, and curls his lip up at the side. “Can you blame me for going off the way I did?”

“You should’ve fuckin’ called me,” I tell him, jabbing my finger in his chest, feeling the anger coursing through me.

“Brother, you need to chill,” Wolf remarks, shoving between Kevlar and me. “We’ve got enough to deal with. Don’t need the two of you going at each other’s throats.”

I take a breath, step back, and nod. “Yeah, we do. Fox should be here any minute as well.”

“You got a hold of Fox?” Kevlar gapes, brows shooting upward.

“Yeah.”

Moving farther away from him and the others, I turn away and get control of myself all over again. I hadn’t slept last night. My thoughts kept going over what Rory shared. I know I should’ve stayed and got her to finish telling me. I should’ve gone through the files Vulture put together about her. I didn’t do any of this and instead thought of nothing else but the look on her face as she told me the little bit she did.

“Brother,” Kevlar calls.

“She lost my kid,” I state, not turning back around. My words are met with silence, and I take a breath and speak further. “She was carrying my kid, and because of Roger, she lost him or her. That fucker took what was mine and destroyed it.”

“Aries, brother, you gotta let the past go, man,” Kevlar states.

“Kevlar’s right. You can’t let the past get to you like this,” Wolf urges, coming up behind me, hand on my shoulder. “You know that better than anyone. We can’t hold onto the past. You gotta let it go.”

“How the fuck am I supposed to let it go when the past keeps rearing its ugly head?”

“You make a choice,” Kevlar answers, coming around to stand in front of me. “Like with what my woman had to do. You make a choice to let it go and move forward. You want Rory. I know it. Hell, it’s the only reason you ain’t ever found another woman. She’s yours, and you need to figure shit out with her.”

“It’s not as easy as that.” I grunt and look at the warehouse entrance. “Let’s just drop it for now. We need to focus. The shipment for Mateo comes in this week, and we need to be ready for it.” I don’t need to keep my head where it doesn’t need to be. If I did, I know I’ll end up fucking us all over, and that’s something that none of us need. The club comes first. My dick and what I want to do with it comes second.

A couple hours later, my phone vibrates in my pocket as my brothers and I make our way into one of the local bars. We’d gone through the warehouse and made notes on all of the security risks that we’d be working to fix in the coming days.

I pull the phone out of my pocket, see the name displayed, and call out to my brothers. “Be inside in a minute.” I move off to the side of the building and answer the call. “Yeah.”

“You’re not at the hotel, so where you at?” Fox asks.

“Bar down the road,” I tell him. “You were supposed to be here this morning. Where the fuck were you?”

“Fill you in when I get there,” Fox says and hangs up on me.

It should piss me off he’d done that, but it’s who he is.

I pull the phone from my ear and barely get it in my pocket before a sick-ass Chevy pulls up next to me. The damn thing seems to have all the shit a man could dream up for a truck. Roll bar, snorkel, at least a twelve-inch lift kit, blackened wheels. It’s a thing of pure beauty. The passenger side window rolls down, and behind the wheel is my brother.

“Get in,” Fox states.

I quickly jump in the passenger seat. No sooner I get the door closed he take off again.

“Nice truck.”

“Thanks.”Silence fills the space between us for a few minutes before he parks the truck at the hotel. “Let’s get to your room. There, I’ll let you in on what all I know.”

“Right,” I grunt, staring after my brother as he hops out of his side of the truck.

Tension builds inside me, anticipating whatever it is Fox is going to share with me.

“We’re in my room, now spit it the fuck out,” I demand him the instant my door closes us inside.

Fox’s silence is getting on my damn nerves.

With my feet planted still at the door, eyes locked on my brother. Fox moves around the room to the window and pulls the curtain back a bit to peek out before turning and planting his ass in a seat.

“Rory doing okay?”

“What the fuck kind of question is that?” I boom, becoming more and more pissed by the minute. “Tell me what the fuck you gotta share, Fox.”

Fox leans back in his chair, stretches his legs out, and clasps his hands together on his chest. “I asked because I wanted to know if she was doing good after all the bullshit she’s been through,” he explains. “Did you know she had a miscarriage?”

“Yeah, I know,” I grind out, not wanting to talk about it.

Fox narrows his gaze, shifts in his seat, sits forward, and braces his elbows on his knees. “Did you know she signed a contract indenturing herself to Roger because he was going to have you killed while at basic training?”

This I didn’t know. “No.”

“I bet you didn’t even know once a year, he straps her to a Saint Andrew’s cross and not only beats her but forces her to take whatever he wants to do to her body. Usually, this is around the time of year when she’d force herself to have a miscarriage to keep from having to have his child. I also bet you didn’t know that she sings in his clubs, not because she wants to but because he makes her. She’s not allowed to go anywhere without him or a guard with her. If she disobeys, she pays the price. Which pretty much means that she takes what Roger decides to do to her behind closed doors. Which you might not want to hear means, she has to take his dick.”

Fuck me, I don’t want to hear this shit.

“Do you have anything else for me that doesn’t involve Roger putting his dick in Rory?” If I have to hear any more of this, I’m gonna lose it.

“Oh, I’ve got plenty. Like the fact he dosed her a handful of times with a drug called Heavenly Rose.”

“Fuck.”I know what the drug is. I know what it does to a person. Before we all decided to come to Mississippi, my brothers, the club, we saw what the drug can do to someone firsthand.“How about you tell me something else?”

“Roger is using the different clubs to launder money for several different groups, including one that just so happens to be in your very backyard.”

“You’re shittin’ me. The fight club group we went up against?”

“The one and the same,” Fox confirms. “Granted, Roger had a bit of a roadblock come into play here lately since the organization took on a new set of head honchos. They’re not really wanting to do business with him as such.”

“What else do you know? What about the bounty?”

I need to know what I’m dealing with completely.

“Bounty is out to find and bring her back in one piece. Doesn’t matter if she’s beaten beforehand. She’s to be brought back. Roger’s pissed because he’s losing money without her on stage. You might remember how good she was at singing. She’s also a damn good dancer and puts on a good show at his clubs.”

“And how do you know this?”

“I’ve seen a show once or twice when going to one of his places for work.” He shrugs like it’s not a big deal.

“You’ve seen her and didn’t do anything to help her?”

“I didn’t know everything I know now in the times I’d seen her. And besides, it wasn’t my place.”

“Since when do you care if it’s your place or not?” I’ve never known my brother to sit by and watch.

Fox gets to his feet and sneers. “The line of work I’m in, Aries, I turn my head to a lot of things I might not agree with. Besides the contract, I’d seen only for the first five years. That times up, she just doesn’t know it. And he’s not going to give her up without a fight. The son of a bitch has been all up in her shit since we were all kids. He didn’t like you with her and wanted you out of the way. The bastard was willing to kill you. Think of that when you get your head straight where she’s concerned. She gave you up to save you. Her life for yours.”

“This isn’t the first time I’ve heard that. What I want to know is how he thought he could pull it off?” It’s one of the questions that’s been eating at me.

“Because your Staff Sergeant was going to put a bullet in your head as a payoff from Roger. There was proof of it. Roger had pictures to show Rory he wasn’t playing around.”

Nodding, I don’t say anything. I just let Fox’s words sink in—all of them.

However, Fox wasn’t done. He keeps talking, filling me in on everything he knows. All of it churning my stomach. Moving across the room, I look out the window and watch the cars go past the hotel. But I wasn’t focused on the cars. My mind was picturing the woman I’d left back at the clubhouse. The broken look in her eyes. The pain I’d heard in her voice. The defiance I’d seen in the way she acted.

All these years, she’s been nothing but a prisoner to a man who trapped her and took from her what should have always been.

I’m going to have still to hear it from her, but at least when I do, I won’t run off again. I’ll have myself in check and will be able to hear her out with a clear head because there’s one thing I know for certain, and it’s that Rory has always been mine.

I’m claiming what I should have all those years ago rather than walk away because of what she’d written in some letter.