“Almost didn’t.”
True. He almost didn’t.
Her fingers circled his left wrist over the wide leather band and she lifted it to her lips. “Sometimes you just need to be free of the pain. I’m not sorry you survived, but I am sorry to do so, you had to continue to suffer. I want to say living was worth it, but only you can determine that.”
He pulled his wrist from her fingers and cupped her face. She tilted her head and rubbed her cheek against his warm palm.
“Took a long time for it to be worth it.”
“When you were freed at seventeen?”
He shook his head. “At twenty-eight.”
“What happened when you were twenty-eight?”
“Found my family.”
“Your club.”
“And now you. Sorry I couldn’t explain, but it’s best you don’t know.”
She released a long sigh. “That worries me.”
“Best you don’t know,” he repeated.
“I’m always going to wonder.”
“Chelle.” Her name came out as warning.
He didn’t want her to push, so she wouldn’t. She pressed her palm to his chest instead. “Okay. So, give me a good reason why I should forgive you for leaving the way you did?”
“Don’t gotta forgive me, beautiful. But know it’s done and over. At least what I set out to do. Needed to finish a previous chapter before startin’ a new one.”
She pinned her eyebrows together. “A new one... With me?”
“With you, the girls...” An uneasy look crossed his face. “Problem is, wasn’t expectin’ to discover some shit that I did about my father. Might have to deal with that later.”
She frowned. “But not now.”
He shook his head. “Not now. Got somethin’ else to deal with first. Someone else.”
“What do you mean?”
“Before I closed that last chapter, stumbled upon a new endin’.”
What was he talking about?
Before she could ask, he continued, “Or maybe it’s a new beginnin’. Don’t know, never read a book yet.”
“You will.”
“Maybe. Or can just have you read them to me.”
“Or you can listen to audiobooks.” She made it sound like she was teasing him, but, in truth, him listening to audiobooks and reading along with the narrator would be good for him.
“Would rather listen to you.”
“I’d rather hear your explanation on this new ending. Or new beginning.”
“Got a lot to talk about, maybe we should go inside so you can sit down.”
What? “Oh no. Now you need to explain this second. I’m not moving until you do.”
“Ain’t you cold?”
“Shade!”
“At least sit on my sled—”
“Shade!” She wasn’t moving an inch until he was done talking.
In the end, Chelle knew he skipped over a lot of details. Like the main reason he was in that house in Georgia and what else happened while he was there besides finding a twelve-year-old boy in a cage. Goosebumps broke out along her skin and it wasn’t from the chill in the late October air. It was from the little he did tell her and everything he omitted.
But from what he did say, she knew he went to revisit his past. To seal whatever doors he needed permanently shut. He couldn’t move forward until he did that.
Not only for himself but for her. For their future together.
Even so, if she’d known what he had planned, her realization of why he left without a word was correct. She would’ve fought like crazy for him not to go. One reason being she was sure for him it was like stepping back into the depths of hell.
A hell she wanted to protect him from, even though that might never be possible.
But in the heavy darkness he revisited, he’d become the light.
For a boy who had been stolen. Just like Julian.
“He’s stayin’ with me... With the club... With us.”
“For good?”
“If I can’t find his family.”
“He has family, Shade.”
He frowned. “What?”
“He’s got us.”
Shade squeezed his eyes shut and whispered, “Fuck, Chelle.”
“Isn’t that why you brought him home?”
“Home,” he breathed, opening his eyes. “Yeah.” He went on to explain the conversation he had with Jude about Shade acting as his father and also the conversation he had with Trip.
“Did Trip believe you?”
“Don’t think so.”
“Will that be a problem for us?”
The corners of his lips curled slightly, and he didn’t hide his relief as he repeated, “Us. No, ain’t gonna be a problem for us. What about your girls?”
“You tell me.” Shade knew them well enough now, knew what they were like. And they loved him. Chelle had made up an excuse on why he’d disappeared but promised them he’d be back. At the time, she only hoped that was true.
“Knowin’ your girls, ain’t gonna be a problem for them, either.”
“They always teased me about giving them a little brother. After getting my tubes tied, I never thought I’d become a mother again.”
“Might not be easy. He’s a twelve-year-old kid who’s gonna go through some shit.”
“We all go through stuff. And who would understand those things better than you? Are you sure his mother’s not out there somewhere?”
Shade blew a breath through his nostrils. “No. Hope to fuck I’m wrong. Hope she escaped or they took pity on her. Somethin’. But from the info I got, not lookin’ likely.”
“If it happened the way you think it happened, does he know those details?”
Shade’s jaws flexed. “No. Gonna try to shield him from that as long as possible.”
“What did you tell him instead?”
“That she accidentally died when she was fightin’ them. She slipped tryin’ to escape and hit her head on the concrete. Died instantly.”
“What really happened to her?”
“Chelle...”
“She didn’t die instantly.”
His lips pressed into a flat line.
What happened to Jude’s mother must be bad, since Shade wasn’t sharing those details with her, either. Chelle closed her eyes as her stomach turned. Jude’s mother was most likely tortured.
Tortured.
Why was the Earth so full of sick people? What ever happened to humanity? Or had she been living in a bubble? She couldn’t wrap her head around all the evil in the world.
Not that she wanted to.
It was bad enough she lost her husband to it.
Shade lost his mother to it. Lost himself for a long time to it, too.
Now Jude was motherless because of it.
No, she didn’t want to understand it. She only wished things like that, people like them, didn’t exist.
Most likely that wish would never come true.
“Gonna keep lookin’, just in case. But thinkin’ he’s now an orphan.”
“Like you were.”
“Yeah, Chelle, just like me.”
She slapped a hand over her mouth when what he just said and how he said it hit her. “Oh no,” she breathed.