Chapter Thirty-­Three

Chapter Thirty-Three

Tobias

Age Thirty-Three

O cean-blue eyes gaze back at me as she hovers above me, fireflies dancing around the tall grasses surrounding us, the moon translucent between the trees. Warmth snakes into my arms, making them heavy, almost impossible to lift, the soothing rush circulating through them threatening to pull me back into the dark. Still, I fight it because she's here with me, whispering to me, kissing me, her presence soothing, like no other comfort I've ever felt. Straining, I can't hear her whispers as I fight to stay with her, the moon behind her glowing brighter now, rising high above the trees. Her lips move again as she reaches for me, but I can't make out the words she's speaking. The menacing orb hovers just above now, its glare brighter than the sun, threatening to take her with it.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

"Don't go," I beg as I fight the warmth and reach up to caress her face. She tilts her head in confusion, disappearing briefly as the overpowering light again obstructs my view.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

A distant voice sounds from beyond the trees, but it's not hers.

"Fight it, man. Come on, T."

I'm safe here, lying beneath her, her dark-blue eyes beckoning me to stay, just a little longer. But the moon threatens, and now she's fading, still smiling as she whispers to me. It shifts again as I call to it, asking for a little more time, and the man inside mocks me with his smile, betraying me by fully stealing the sight of her. I cry out at the loss, and it glows brighter and brighter until I'm blinded by it—until it's all I can see.

All at once I'm thrust into it as it burns my eyes, and pain takes over. Pain from the loss of her, everywhere, it's all I can feel.

She's gone.

"There you are." A face appears, the face of a young woman, blocking out the light above, but it's not hers.

"Ce—" I croak, but I'm unable to speak, my throat raw.

"She's okay, man." I recognize the voice as a masculine hand grips mine. "I swear to you. We've got her covered. She's okay." Tyler. His shadowed face becomes clearer as he stands above me, worry etched in his eyes. "Don't fight. Don't fight, man. Let them do their thing." His eyes dart to the woman, who isn't her. It's not Cecelia.

Furious, I struggle against him. I need to get back to her.

"Tres—" my tongue is coated in copper, my words blocked as Tyler curses and a picture flits through my mind—a memory, my feet pounding on the pavement, as Eddie Vedder sings about a sun in someone else's sky. I've just lost everything that mattered in my own. My sun, my moon, every fucking burning star between them. I want the moon back, even if it mocks me, and it won't matter to me, because at least I'll be with her. But I wasn't...

I was running. I was running when . . .

Awareness drives into me like a freight train as I jerk back into reality while Tyler stands above me, his hand pinning me back as the girl speaks to me in an attempt to calm me. But she's not Cecelia.

Cecelia wasn't here.

She was never here.

My eyes blister with the truth as I close them, feeling the full weight of it as hot anger leaks out of me, and I let out a soundless scream.

Those bullets failed me .

"Jesus Christ, man," Tyler croaks. "Please, brother. Please don't." He hovers above me, his red-rimmed eyes filling as he reads the truth in my own.

I don't want to be here.

Anywhere but back here. Not anymore. Not without Dom. Not without her.

Cecelia.

I was in the street as a group of strangers gathered around me, their faces a blur as I fixed on the cloud-filled blue sky behind them, relieved. Because I didn't have to force the lie of living anymore as I bled out on that sidewalk. Relief was coming. Maybe Dom would meet me. Maybe my parents.

But those bullets fucking failed me. They fucking failed me. And I'm back here, without her. I'm breathing again without a reason to. I don't want this life. I don't want any life. Enraged tears sting my eyes, and I stop struggling, utterly defeated as he presses me back against the bed.

"Fuck," Tyler rasps out hoarsely, his eyes darting over to the side of the room where I know Sean is sitting, looking on at me with the same pity. I avert my gaze because I know they see the truth. I'm not the same man anymore. I don't know who I am. And I don't care.

Those goddamn bullets failed me.

*

Pearl Jam's "Black" fades as I pull my earbuds out, and walk down the driveway, the memory of the day I woke up in the hospital fresh in my mind. I exhale to try and clear my head, bracing my hands on my knees as sweat rolls down my temple. My heart rate starts to even out after another attempt at facing what haunts me. I was listening to that song when I got shot. At times I force myself to relive it, hoping eventually its hold will lessen. And for the most part, it has. The irony is, it doesn't lessen the memory of the heartache it evoked when I came to at the hospital.

But now the moon rises in my favor. Now I can reach out and touch her, and I don't need morphine or disillusion. She's with me, in my arms, every fucking night. It's no longer a dream. It's our reality.

That acknowledgment is cut short as Julien's phone rumbles in my pocket. Trepidation seeps in as I pull it out to see the same text I've gotten the past three and a half weeks.

Quelle est la situation?

I wait the appropriate amount of time before I shoot off a reply.

Pas de changement.

I add two pictures I took, similar to those sent in the past. One of Cecelia working through the window of her café, and one I had a bird shoot of me walking out of the hardware store, hoping they satisfy him, and I fucking hate it.

It only takes a few minutes for a response. Immediate dread circulates through the rest of me as I read the reply—a time and flight number. Antoine wants him home.

Any control I had is now slipping through my fingers. Control is what I need in order to function, in order to protect her, to keep my sanity.

The minute I put him on that plane, I'll be flying blind, with no idea what his plans are or how to proceed.

Whatever he's decided, it's clear he's not going to let me finish my life out in domestic bliss with Cecelia. And I've felt like this once before, the night before Dom died, hours after Cecelia and I were discovered by Dom and Sean. The night my brothers shunned me, turned their backs on me.

George Michael's "Father Figure" filters through the trees, a clear message for me as I pace the clearing, utterly torn on what to do. She's had the song on repeat, blaring it through her commercial-sized speakers out on her balcony since I showed up here an hour ago, attempting to come up with the right words to explain my deception. She knows I sent them away and lied to her repeatedly, but she doesn't understand the full extent of why I went to such extremes. Her emotions due to my actions will make it impossible for her to fully grasp the why of it all or understand the years of sacrifices I've made, some of them to keep her safe.

And with the way she looked at me earlier, I'm not sure I can get through to her. I've lost any chance I had at earning her trust, and all I want to do is grab her and flee. Take her away from everything that's threatening to come between us. She's already packing, to flee from me, from the situation, minute by minute, convincing herself that what we had was just another lie. Every minute I hesitate in explaining myself is a minute lost.

Have I lost her already?

What will her reaction be once she wakes to find she's marked?

Maybe this morning, she would have taken the mark if I asked her to. But she's still so young, and the truth is, she can still get out of this.

She can move on from here as planned and live as though this time with me was just a blip on her way to something else, a safer life, nothing more.

I could push her out, force her to flee, and maybe with her absence, I can salvage my relationship with my brothers, and the club can recover.

From a business perspective, it would be so much easier to let her go. However, not for one second can I imagine living the next without her. It took me so long to find her.

Flicking the cap off the bottle, I'm thankful for the burn of the gin in my throat, praying it will quiet my racing thoughts for the right solution.

We could leave, flee together until the smoke clears, until I can give them time to deal with their anger and come back and test the waters. I dismiss the idea as soon as it occurs to me. I've never abandoned them, and I won't add to my own betrayal by doing it now, no matter how appealing it is to just whisk her away and keep her.

It's selfish, and that's what got me in this situation.

Dom will see the logic in marking her for one purpose only, for protection. Sean won't see it as anything but a possessive play on my part .

Both of them will be right.

But is she truly mine?

The look in her eyes this morning told me that is the truth of it, and I still feel it. She's mine, made for me, the only soul on this earth I've ever felt matched with, safe, home. The feel of her when I took her only hours ago, the lust-drunk slur of my name leaving her lips, and love-filled look in her eyes as she tightened around me convinced me nothing else has ever been so true.

She is mine. I still feel it with every fiber of my being, despite the way her heart broke upon seeing them again and the betrayal she felt for loving me back, for knowing she belongs with me.

This has gone too far.

Lighting a cigarette, I draw the tobacco in deep and exhale before taking back more gin.

Tick tock.

Every second is like a lash to the chest. I've already given the order to mark her. The minute she's asleep, she'll be branded as mine.

I've made bold and calculated moves since I was young, but the stakes have never been so high. My heart may have decided, but my mind is in fucking shambles. I'm utterly torn and have no idea which way to move.

The look on Dom's face, the rage in his posture, the hurt in his eyes, and Sean... I close my eyes and clearly picture his ravaged expression and the tears he freely shed, something I could never have anticipated.

I completely negated the depth of their feelings due to the nature of their relationship. And the truth was so blatant today. She loves them. The look in her eyes when they discovered us and the emotions whirring between the three of them is tearing me apart.

Every one of my gambles in the past has paid off. But like the others, once in motion, this is something that can't be undone.

I can't. I can't do it.

Pulling up my cell, I quickly tap a text to execute the order, my finger hovering on send.

She needs this mark. Anyone who saw her at the meetup knows her importance. She became leverage for any enemy of the club the minute she got involved with them. And from what I've gathered, Sean flaunted her all over Triple Falls when they were together. I still can't fucking comprehend what either of them was thinking, and instead of giving them a chance to explain, I'd acted as judge and jury and passed sentence. They'd served it, willingly and without much of a fight, to appease me.

And in return . . . I destroyed us.

As much as I want to regret it, I can't. Despite how we happened, her love is the purest thing I've ever known.

And I'm about to punish her for it.

I hang my head as the lyrics of the song wrap around my heart, feeding me a desperate sort of hope. Father Figure. Is that how she sees me? The lyrics cut jaggedly down the center of my already tattered chest as I try my best to think of a way to get to her.

If I go to her right now and give her my reasons and the absolute truth, will she believe me? Or will I be fully at her mercy to the point she won't listen to what's important?

"Goddamnit!" Ripping off my jacket, I toss it onto the ground and stare up into the night sky. This place is where I've come since I was a child to find my answers, where they came to me through dancing rays of moonlight. But there's no moon in sight. Those rays are non-existent when I need them most. It's as if whatever gift I've been granted knows I've betrayed my path by falling in love.

The festering in my chest increases tenfold as I try to imagine life without her. I've always dealt in black and white with decisions, emotions never a consideration.

No emotions, no mistakes.

When the song begins again, I stare down at my phone, my finger still hovering above send as it rings in my hand.

"I don't have time to talk," I snap.

"What was our agreement, Tobias?" Antoine hisses in reply.

"I did your fucking bidding. I just left Paris. I saw to it the deal was in motion—"

"Do you want to be the one to tell my sister her only son died tonight? "

"I told you not to move in without me," anger surges, desperate for an outlet. "I told you not to send him. That he wasn't ready."

"I don't take orders from you," he bites back. "And now I have a dead nephew, and you cost me. This was your deal."

"I told you I would be back in a few—"

"You've broken our agreement."

"I told you to wait on me!" I roar into the phone, my palms sweating as needles begin to prick the skin of my chest.

"And you've wasted too much of my time with your little vacation home." He keeps his tone even, and it's then I know he has an agenda. "I'm afraid this oversight is going to cost you a lot more this time, Ezekiel." I pause when the music drifting from the house is abruptly cut off, and know I have minutes to send the text to cancel the order, to free her of my mark, to rid her of this life, especially since I know that by being here, indulging her, I've just indebted myself to Antoine.

"We need to have a long discussion about our future."

He doesn't give a fuck about his nephew. And I wouldn't put it past him to sabotage his own deal to get what he wants from me—my allegiance. I take comfort in knowing he doesn't give a fuck about my club. It's control he's after—that I can give him to stave him off.

"I'll go to my Charlotte office and wire you the money. I'll personally make sure your sister has my sincerest condolences."

"I'm afraid that's not going to be enough."

I hang my head, knowing that he's got me. Not once have I failed to deliver, but by being absent, I gave him an opportunity to entrap me. And his next words only confirm my suspicions.

"I'll expect you home within the week."

"France is not my fucking home!"

"Maybe a compromise, then. I'm not an unreasonable man, and I've always been curious about the place you consider home, Tobias."

Tobias.

He's never once called me by that name.

That itself is threat enough. He's found some leverage in my so-called fuck-up, and he's not letting go of it.

Over the years, I've fed him bits and pieces about the club through Palo, spoonful by spoonful, to give him the illusion he's in the know, but it seems that tactic is starting to backfire. I can't afford to have him involve himself in any way in my life here, especially now.

"You're crossing a fucking line." I feel the pulse in my temple pounding.

"I, too, am offended by your disregard. He was my only nephew."

I start in the direction of Roman's house just to lay eyes on her, to gather some comfort just from her presence, despite the hostile reception I'm sure to get, and make it just a few steps toward her when her bedroom light clicks off. Stopped halfway between the clearing and Roman's mansion, I stand in a state of utter indecision as defeat starts to seep in. There's no way around Antoine, and my priorities have to shift now if I want to get ahead of him and keep him far, far away from what matters most to me.

"I'll call you in a few hours when I'm back in my office, and we can discuss our future."

I have to get to my brothers to try and stop the hemorrhage before it ruptures any further. I need them sharp and focused if Antoine's threat becomes a reality. That realization has me stopping just a hundred yards away from her and changing directions to get to my Jag.

Every second I let my emotions make decisions is a second we can't afford to lose.

I can hear the satisfaction in the sick fuck's voice with his parting words.

"Don't keep me waiting, Ezekiel."

The line goes dead as his threat hangs heavy in the air, and I start at a dead run past the tree line, all the while paralyzed inside. I carefully go over every possible move, knowing that I'm fucked in every direction.

Once behind the wheel, I pull up the text, and my finger hovers for seconds before I slowly backspace until I've deleted it.

The decision's been made for me.

She'll need protection from the club moving forward. She'll wake up marked, and she'll hate me for it. Another unforgivable deception I'll have to live with .

Hours later, I slam my phone down on my desk and sink into my chair in my Charlotte office, where I've been since I left King's Garage, in an attempt to do damage control with Dom and Sean. I've spent nearly the entire day negotiating with a fucking madman in the bed I made years ago. I wired a significant amount of lunch money to keep the bully at bay, to keep him as far the fuck as possible away from my brothers, my club, and the woman I love.

And in doing so, I agreed to a new arrangement, one that will have me under his heel for some time to come. But it's not my newly forced allegiance to him that's eating me alive. If I can manage to get my club and relationships under control, then I can better figure out a way to deal with Antoine, even if it means declaring war and bringing him down. It's the fallout with my brothers at our garage just hours ago that has me feeling defeated in a way I never imagined possible.

No matter what I do from this point, I already feel like I've lost everything.

She woke up hours ago, no doubt feeling violated in a way that's incomprehensible to her. And I wasn't there. I wasn't there to attempt to explain myself or my reasoning for doing what I did. And at this point, I know they won't matter.

Swallowing down the guilt, I scan the Charlotte skyline, my hands tied in a way they've never been. The helplessness I feel is inescapable, my fate and future sealed as Shelly comes in with another cup of coffee.

"Honey, you look like hell. Drink this." She places the offering on my desk as Sean and Dom's condemning words circle my mind, my jaw sore from the punch Sean threw as their parting words to me rip my insides apart. Shelly lingers at my desk, and I can feel her concern, her hesitance before she finally speaks. "I know this isn't the time, but you have a call—"

"Take a message."

"He said it's urgent, regarding someone named Cecelia."

Every hair on the back of my neck stands on end as I head straight to the blinking light on my desk and lift the receiver. "Did they give a name?"

She nods. "Roman Horner. "

That phone call and the hours after I've replayed so many times at this point, I re-live it vividly. From the meeting with Roman that changed everything I thought about him, to the two terrifying hours I spent speeding back to Triple Falls to try and get to her. To the minute Dom lay dying in her arms and down to the second our eyes held just after I ordered her never to return. In twenty-four hours, my life exploded, and a war began.

That night I truly lost it all. Every bit of my control, along with my brother, Cecelia, my club, everything that fucking mattered to me because I hesitated when making decisions due to my emotions. I can't make that mistake again. I can't hesitate. I can't lose her because of it. I have to let the emotionless soldier—the monster that dwells inside me—take over if I want to gain the upper hand with Antoine.

I can't let love make a single fucking decision for me.

There's a storm brewing, and it's one I can't see, but I can feel it, just like I felt it all those years ago. I have to fucking figure out his intentions—his plays. And more than that, I have to be several moves ahead of him.

Without Palo, I'm a sitting duck. A phone call with Antoine isn't going to convince me one way or the other. And without a word from him for the last month, I know it's just a matter of time before he comes calling. This time, I'll be ready. I've spent the last six years satiating his demands while trying to clean up my own fucking mess. My plans to rid myself of him are taking a back seat to the recovery of the club. I was intent on keeping him at bay while we rebuilt, and with Cecelia's sudden arrival and my efforts to get back to her, I waited too fucking long to move in on him.

I never make the same mistake twice.

Because of love, I've made that declaration a lie.

And I'm a man in. Fucking. Love.

If it's war this motherfucker is after, my peacekeeping days are long over.

Decision made, I stalk toward the house, and twenty minutes later, I speed out of the driveway in the Camaro.