“Fuck knows. Maybe it’s why Lucifer went straight to Wolfe to talk? I thought he was traveling with us for, I dunno, protection, maybe? But it could be for something else.”
“If it’s connected with the Knights, then it could be the cigarettes. Makes sense that the ATF would be involved.” I scrubbed a hand over my chin. “Wonder why we haven’t been called in.”
“Wouldn’t wonder too hard. Ama. You know her folks will do what they can to keep her safe. Plus, if anything happens to us, you heard her today.” He shook his head. “I’ll bet you my bike that Lucie knows exactly what’s keeping Ama stable.”
When he made to walk off to the door, I grabbed his arm and jerked him back. “Hey, did you know back then she was suicidal?”
“No.” He pulled a face. “I knew there were some tough times. Some of the cunts at school were giving her shit about her folks, and then about the MC too. She was having some trouble with her classes, especially when they shoved her into some AP stuff, but I think that would have been after the time she was talking about.” His nose wrinkled. “I don’t know, man, she’s always been kind of fragile, you know that.”
I winced at that. Mostly because I hated the word. Ama was fragile, but it was the fragility of a poppy. Sure, it swayed in the breeze, its delicate leaves fluttering and being torn by its environment, but it appeared year after year. It was hardy, made of tough stock, and that was Ama.
What she’d gone through might have broken another kid.
She was here.
Bruised, a little battered mentally, but still fighting strong.
Gnawing on my bottom lip, I stared at the house and murmured, “Once you’re in, you know it will kill her if you leave.”
His shoulders hunched. “I was jealous.”
“Aren’t you now? You saw how she ran to him.”
Keys smirked. “She did the same to me when I arrived at the tattoo parlor.”
My brow crumpled. “Why the fuck didn’t she do it to me?”
He slapped me on the back with a laugh. “You had food.”
Jesus. Yeah. Ama and food weren’t something you got between.
With a dopey grin crossing my jaw, I began to walk up to the house. When I headed inside, Keys at my back, I stared around. There was a caution to my movements that I couldn’t really explain. It was almost like I was waiting for a skeleton to pop up around the corner.
Ink was a well-respected brother in the club. He was trusted, and as a Secretary, everyone had a habit of going to him with their shit, expecting him to mop it up and, kudos to him, he usually did it. But I don’t think anyone knew him well.
He’d sure as fuck kept the fact that Ama was sneaking into his bedroom at night a secret.
What else was he hiding?
I knew he’d been in the army. Also knew he’d been kicked out for insubordination, which didn’t exactly surprise me. A lot of brothers started in the army and found their way to an MC. There was less BS, less posturing, but it still had some structure ex-soldiers needed.
Ink’s house was clue enough that he’d been in the Forces. It was neat. Clean. Just like the outside. Well maintained and properly kept.
It just wasn’t what I’d expected.
I’d thought it would be a man cave, with black leather sofas and huge TVs in every living space. Instead, in the lounge, the walls were a weird blue color, the sofas were leather, yeah, but cream, and they were covered in soft-looking blankets. A glass coffee table supported a reusable Starbucks mug that he’d evidently dumped there when he’d come in, and the TV stood on a matching stand. But it wasn’t a sixty-inch behemoth. Just a regular-sized one.
When we headed into the kitchen where the murmurs of conversation were coming from, I frowned at the sight of the shiny white cupboards, the small scrubbed oak island in the middle, and the matching table against the back wall. It was clean and modern, and not what I’d expected.
“From the look on your face, I figure you thought I’d live in a dive or something,” he mumbled as he popped his neck, before heading into the fridge which he’d evidently stocked because he hurled cans of beer at us. “Ama, what do you want to drink?”
“Just water, please,” she replied from her place on the island, her legs swung back and forth as her gaze darted between all of us.
Was she expecting us to fight? To confront Ink with—hell, with what? He hadn’t done anything wrong. If Ama was sore today, it had to mean that he’d taken her virginity last night so he’d done right by her all along.
I had to respect that, because fuck, I wasn’t sure if I’d have been as good of a man as that.
❖
Ink
Her scream, when it came, didn’t come as a surprise.
I had some haunting and harrowing dreams of my own, so my sleep was never that strong anyway, and ever since she’d become a part of my nightly routine, that had only been exacerbated.
From the way the boys had been touching her? I’d figured they’d worked shit out at the parlor after I’d gone. They’d definitely moved up a gear from just friends.
Deep down, I’d hoped that would ease her mind some, but that was too much to hope for. Love, lust, and sex weren’t cures for what she’d gone through.
Her PTSD ran deep, and I couldn’t fucking blame her.
What she’d gone through, what she’d seen and had to do, it was a wonder she wasn’t more fucked in the head. As it was, the nightmares, the need to constantly have a drink at her side—one she usually always gulped like it would be denied her again—and the habit of never leaving any food on her plate, were minor in the grand scheme of things.
Of course, I doubted I knew every single one of the quirks, but those were the ones I thought manifested the most. The ones Lucie had called idiosyncrasies, and that she believed would be the breaking point in any relationship Ama had with a man. Or, I guessed, men.
Tonight, I curved my arms around her, but I wasn’t surprised when the door opened and Saint and Keys came in.
The three of them had camped out in the living room after Lucie had come and tucked Matty and Seamus into the spare bedroom.
I’d left them watching a movie because I needed to be up early in the morning. It had come as no surprise to stir a few hours later and find her tucked into bed with me.
The scream had evidently woken the others, but not her brothers who apparently slept like the dead because I didn’t hear a thing from their bedroom down the hall. When they clambered in beside her, Saint on the outer edge, Keys beside Ama, I didn’t say a word. Neither did they.
The sound of her sobs tore at me, fucking wrenched at my soul, but even though my hands formed into fists as my outrage powered through me, I shuffled them along so she wouldn’t feel them. I didn’t want her to know how tense her bad dreams made me. How they made me wish to turn back time so I could rip Aaron Sanchez apart again and again, truly make him pay for how he’d messed with her head.
The British had tortured men they suspected of being in the IRA with something called the ‘five techniques.’ They were illegal now, of course, they had been back then too. But they were torture methods that fucked with people’s heads long term.
I knew for a fact that she’d endured at least four of those techniques. Her eyes had been covered for days, and she’d been denied food, drink, and sleep. And, because I’d gone to therapy with her, I also knew he’d very rarely stopped talking. Subjection to noise was usually loud blasts of sound, but the constant chattering of a stupid fucker who had revenge on his mind? Reminders of how he was going to hurt her to punish her fathers? How she was going to pay for what her dads had done to his?