Chapter 29

King/Dante

I didn't roll out of bed until after eleven and was still tired as hell. It had taken a long time for my mind to shut off, as I'd replayed the events of the day on a continuous loop. Even once I'd fallen asleep, I'd been plagued by dreams that Ella was gone, and I couldn't find her.

I reached for my phone to make sure I hadn't missed a call or text from her, then tossed my phone on the bed with a sigh. I'd decided yesterday not to reach out to her through her friend or her cousin, mainly because once I'd known she was safe, I hadn't wanted to raise any red flags, especially since I'd have to explain how and why I'd come to have their phone numbers in the first place. Now, I was tempted to do it anyway, red flags be damned.

I resisted the urge though. The fact that Ella couldn't access her messages yet had given me a reprieve, which I would lose the second I talked to her. Now, I just needed to figure out how the fuck to explain what had happened in a way that didn't make her leave my ass in the dust.

After getting dressed, I went downstairs to find that life had returned to normal in the clubhouse, with several of the brothers milling around over a late breakfast, along with a couple of the club bunnies. Thankfully, DD wasn't one of them.

Bull pulled me aside and told me there hadn't been any activity on Star's phone, so we assumed that she was using a burner at this point. There was still no sign of her or her car, so we also assumed she was on the run.

I reluctantly made a call to K-Dog, filling him in on our suspicions regarding Star, and possibly Pic, working with T-Bone, as well as the fact that T-Bone had apparently killed Pic last night.

Surprisingly, K-Dog didn't blame us that our people had been working with his former associate.

"I don't understand these assholes going rogue. There's no fuckin' loyalty. These motherfuckers think they can turn on us, bite the hand that fuckin' feeds them. Your boy got what he deserved when he caught a bullet, man. I'm just sorry you didn't get to put the traitor down yourself," he commiserated.

We ended the call with him reminding me that he'd give the club a marker if we found T-Bone. "Don't smoke his ass though. I want to see the fear in his eyes. I want him on his goddamned knees begging for mercy that will never fuckin' come before I blow his fuckin' head off."

I was filled with restless energy by mid-afternoon and considered going to my house for the rest of the weekend. I knew it would be too quiet there, and I would only brood over Ella the whole time. I ended up sparring with Irish for a while before heading back upstairs to shower and change. DD had shown up by then and cornered me as I went back downstairs, pushing her tits out and trying to reach for my hand. I pulled it away with a scowl and took a step back.

"Knock it off, DD," I told her, not even bothering to find a private spot for the conversation. "I was spinning a line of bullshit yesterday when I told you to meet me upstairs. We were concerned about a possible threat to my woman, and I was trying to mitigate that threat by making it seem like I wasn't serious about her. I'm sorry for misleading you, but I am not interested, and not available. So in the future, don't even try it with me."

Her eyes widened in surprise, and then she shrugged. "It's your loss," she tossed over her shoulder as she turned to walk away, "because I'm a great lay."

I rolled my eyes – cutting her a break on her attitude given the circumstances – then took a seat at the bar. I was drinking a beer and shooting the shit with Viking and Bull when Skid and Lincoln returned a little after five o'clock.

I vaguely registered Misty saying something to Linc about a birthday cake, then went back to my conversation. We were in the middle of debating the recent NBA draft picks when Linc walked up with a plate in his hand, eating a piece of cake.

"Hey, Prez, when you talk to Ella, be sure to thank her for making me a cake. It's fucking delicious, and I really appreciate it."

That got my attention, and I looked at him in confusion. "When did she make you a cake?"

He shrugged as he chewed and swallowed the bite he'd just shoved in his mouth.

"I don't know. Must have been yesterday morning, I guess. Misty said she saw it in the kitchen when she was making lunch yesterday. I'm just glad nobody ate it before I got back."

"Ella wasn't here yesterday. Why do you think it's from her?" I asked warily. My gut was suddenly churning, and I wasn't quite sure why.

"She left a card with it," he said, reaching into his cut to pull out a white envelope and handing it to me. He continued to eat his cake while I glanced at the card inside, seeing Ella's signature on the bottom.

I got up and went to find Misty, who confirmed that she had noticed the cake around noon when she went into the kitchen to make her lunch. She also swore that it hadn't been there when she fixed breakfast yesterday. I racked my brain, trying to remember if I'd seen a cake when I had staged my big scene, but I'd been too focused on throwing Pic off Ella's trail that I hadn't paid attention to my surroundings.

I swallowed hard as the churning in my gut intensified. Something was wrong here. Something was very fucking wrong.

Five minutes later, Cowboy, Bull, and I were crowded into Bull's office as he pulled up the security camera footage from yesterday morning. He fast-forwarded through images of various brothers wandering in and out for breakfast, until he spotted Ella entering the kitchen through the back door shortly before eleven. She set the cake down on the counter, and moments later she walked into the pantry for some reason. I gripped the edge of Bull's desk, my heart pounding out of my chest as I stared at the images on the screen in growing horror, because I knew what was coming. I knew exactly what was fucking coming.

I watched as I walked into the frame, followed by Cowboy. I listened, as the surveillance cameras picked up the conversation word for fucking word. I listened as I spewed lies about Ella and said things that were so fucking vile I wanted to throw up just hearing them come out of my mouth. I didn't even remember saying half of that shit, but there it was. A wave of hot bile rose in my throat as I heard myself call out to DD to get her ass upstairs and to be waiting for me naked and bent over.

I felt like I couldn't breathe as I heard myself uttering the words that had likely eviscerated Ella, as she'd stood in the pantry listening to everything.

"She's pretty enough, but she's a little too old for my tastes. Gravity is a bitch when it comes to the female body, man. Besides, she's too much of a lady. You know I like ‘em wild in the sheets."

"Oh, fuckin' hell," Cowboy muttered, and Bull flashed me a look of complete disgust.

Less than a minute after Cowboy and I had left the kitchen, Ella had darted out of the pantry and ran out the back door. The camera only captured a fleeting glimpse of her face, but the devastation that I saw there nearly drove me to my knees.

"Fuck no, sugar, no, no, no," I whispered brokenly.

"Pull up the footage from the cameras in the parking lot," Cowboy instructed angrily.

Bull pounded away at his keyboard, making it obvious that he'd rather be pounding my face right about now. I couldn't blame him.

I watched as Ella almost crashed into Camille on the sidewalk, before grabbing her arm and all but dragging her to the car. They drove out of sight just moments later, with Ella ducking down out of sight until they cleared the front gate.

I sagged against the wall; my legs unable to hold my weight as the magnitude of my fuckup hit me. Ella had heard every vicious lie that had fallen from my tongue, and judging by the look on her face, she had believed every single one.

No one said a word for several long moments. Finally, Bull pushed his chair away from his desk and stood up.

"That woman has never hurt a soul, and you managed to rip hers to shreds in less than three goddamned minutes. You'd better fucking fix this," he said quietly, then turned and left his office without another word.

I couldn't even bring myself to look at my best friend, knowing how much he'd been against the plan all along.

"I'm gonna guess that Ella isn't really havin' phone trouble. She just didn't wanna talk to anyone," he observed, and I nodded bleakly.

"What are you gonna do, man?"

"I need to talk to her right now. I need to explain what happened, why I said those things." I pulled out my phone and dialed her number, only for her voice mail to pick up immediately. I left a message, even though I doubted she would listen to it.

"Ella, what you heard yesterday, none of it was true. It was an act, sugar. I was…dammit, I was trying to divert attention from you to keep you safe. I didn't mean any of it. Not one fuckin' word, I swear. Please call me."

I disconnected the call, then scrolled through my contacts until I found the number I'd saved for Camille after Bull had tracked it down yesterday. She didn't answer, nor did Kim when I tried her number next. I left similar messages for them, asking them to relay them to Ella and begging them to have her call me.

I shoved my phone back in my pocket, then shoved my fist through the wall of Bull's office. Luckily, the drywall gave way easily, and I had managed to avoid hitting a stud in the wall, although breaking my hand would have fucking served me right.

"I'm going to Chicago," I announced with steely determination. "I need to see her face to face, if I have any hope at all of explaining this clusterfuck."

"Get a goddamned ice pack for your hand before you go, dumbass. Your knuckles are already startin' to bruise," Cowboy grumbled, then clasped my shoulder and gave it a shake. "Use the drive up there to figure out what the hell to say to her, brother, because you may only get one chance to explain. Good luck."

I nodded and walked out of the office, only to be stopped in the hallway by Bull. He held something up to my face, but it took me a moment to realize what it was. A broken birthday candle.

"I found this on the floor of the pantry. It must be what she went in there for. A birthday candle, to go on a birthday cake that she made for your nephew's birthday, because that's the kind of woman she is," he said quietly. "I understand that you were trying to throw Pic off the scent, but even if she forgives you, she's going to have a hard time forgetting how brutal those words were." He walked into his office and cursed when he saw the hole I'd left in his wall. I walked away as he was shouting for a prospect to come fix it.

I didn't bother taking time to pack anything, and ten minutes later I was on the interstate heading north, with a disposable ice pack taped to my right hand, trying to figure out how in the hell I was ever going to be able to make this right.

It was almost nine o'clock when I pulled my bike to a stop in front of the townhouse that Kim owned. The porch light was on, but it was dark inside. I rang the bell anyway, but clearly they were out for the evening. I checked the map on my phone and found an all-night coffee shop a few blocks away, so I fired my bike up again and headed there. I was in desperate need of some caffeine to get my brain firing on all cylinders before I had to face Ella.

A short while later, I sat in a vinyl booth, picking at a piece of pie that I didn't want, and drinking coffee that was so strong that I was probably growing more hair on my chest. I tried to call Ella again, then Camille, then Kim. No answer, as expected. I was debating whether to ask Bull to ping their phones so I could track them down, when a text popped in from Kim. I fumbled the phone in my haste to open it.

Kim: We haven't told her about your messages yet. I thought you might want to see how she's dealing with your so-called act…

There was a video attachment, and I hesitated briefly before hitting play. The video was recorded in some kind of a club, showing a darkened dance floor, lit only by the flash of the strobe lights and neon light strips outlining the area. The view changed, as the person recording zoomed in on the DJ booth where a woman with wide purple streaks in her hair was running the controls.

" I don't normally take requests, but when I heard Ella's story, there was no fuckin' way I could say no. I got your back, babe. You, and any other woman here tonight who's ever been fucked over by a man. You take back your power, ladies, and this is how you fuckin' do it. Paloma Faith is here to tell you; this is how you leave a man! "

There was a roar of approval from the crowd as the music started playing. I wasn't familiar with the song, but it didn't take long to understand why Ella had requested it.

He'll know when you're tired of neglect and degraded

He'll find out when he wakes up alone

He'll call you ten times but don't take it

Don't take it

The camera zoomed in again as the chorus kicked in, and I got a glimpse of Ella dancing alone, her body moving seductively to the throbbing beat. She looked sexy as hell, and then she turned toward the camera, and I saw her face. She looked angry, and defiant, but for just a moment the mask slipped, and I got a glimpse of the stark pain underneath it all. I felt like I'd been punched in the chest.

The video ended and I sat there for several long moments, replaying it in my mind, frame by frame.

Another text popped up, this time from Camille.

Camille: Give me one good reason why we shouldn't remind Ella that the best way to get over someone is to get under someone else.

My response was instant.

Me: Because I love her. I love her so much that I panicked at the thought of something happening to her, and I made the worst fucking decision of my life. I swear to you, I didn't cheat, and I didn't mean any of the shit that I said. I'm here in Chicago, at a coffee shop near Kim's place. I've been leaving her messages, but I want to try to explain in person. Even if she can't forgive me, I need her to understand that nothing I said was true.

I waited for another text, but nothing else came through, and when I tried to call, they didn't answer.

So, I ordered another cup of coffee, and I forced myself to drink it. I'd just decided to go back to Kim's house to wait for them to come home when another text message came through.

Kim: She's been drinking tonight, and we don't want her to make the decision to talk to you unless she's sober. Find a hotel for the night. We'll let you know in the morning if she wants to see you. Oh, and don't even think about coming to my house unless you're invited. Ella's not the only one who knows how to use a knife, motherfucker.