Fury: Book 2 in the Vengeance MC series (2 page)

- Wrongcards

“She talking to anyone yet?” I ask, leaning against the wall in the hall outside Avery’s room at the clubhouse.

“Not today,” Emily sighs shaking her head sadly. “Our girl’s going to need time, Fury. We can’t rush this, sweetie, because if we do, it will only make things worse.”

I knew this, I’d heard it thousands of times over the past week and a half, but that didn’t mean it was any easier to hear now than it was last time.

Avery and Beth had been rescued over a week ago from a warehouse acting as a storage facility for Hells Riders, battered, bruised, beaten, and violated, barely alive. Beth’s best friend, Bec, however, wasn’t as lucky if that’s what you can call the state we found our women in. Devastatingly, it was too late for Bec by the time we got to her. She’d long since succumbed to her injuries, of which there were many.

The doctor who did the autopsy informed us that she would have suffered horrendously in her last hours, something we’ve kept from Beth and Avery so far. They don’t need to hear the details of how many men violated her every orifice, or the number of hits she had taken to her head before the final blow fractured her skull. No one needed to hear that shit. Fucking no one!

Needless to say, the mood in the clubhouse since we’d returned with two barely recognizable women was dangerous. As men, moreover, as bikers we don’t condone violence toward women. To us, using your hands to hurt a woman is as abhorrent as if someone was to harm a child maliciously – that shit just isn’t done.

Among the men who are out for blood, Avery’s dad, Saint, her Uncles, Tank and Reaper, and her self-appointed grandfather, Sarge are by far the most vocal about the retribution they intend to meter out. Boss and I have discussed it, but our rage is contained inside the walls of his office or the ‘Meat Shack’ – that’s what I call it – at the back of Vengeance’s compound.

We took care of the initial threat, the two people who led our women into the trap that was no doubt planned out by none other than the Hells Riders. Those two were dispatched with no small amount of blood and gore, all of which was due to them for the pain they’d inflicted on innocent women. In saying that, there are still days, I’d like nothing more than to dig their asses up and make them suffer all over again after I’ve spent the night listening to Avery cry out in terror during one of her many nightmares. But I can’t.

Crossing my arms over my chest, I ask,

“Does she need anything? Her Mom left a couple of hours ago to get her some more shit from her apartment, which means she won’t be back till late.”

“Avery has everything she needs right here, Fury,” Emily says, patting one of my forearms. “As long as she has people who care about her, that are willing to be patient and understanding, she won’t need for anything else.”

Not believing her for a second, I narrow my eyes on the tiny woman in front of me.

“She ready for me to go in and sit with her a while?”

Avery hasn’t let anyone into her room aside from, Emily, her best friend Blaine – who drove down with her dad Tank two weeks ago and hasn’t left since – Adelyn, Reaper’s wife, Sarge, and her mother and father. The rest of the club, the people who love her, even Beth who went through the ordeal with her, have been relegated to waiting in the hall on the off chance she’ll let us in to visit with her.

“Not yet,” Emily warns, returning my scowl. “You’re a smart man, Fury, and no doubt you’ve put the pieces together seeing how Beth is with Boss. It’s obvious to everyone with eyes that girl in there,” she says, gesturing to Avery’s door, “went through something far worse than, Beth. Whatever she survived through, we need to take our cues from her. Avery is no wilting flower, she’s strong, stubborn, and resilient. I have no doubt she will battle through this and come out the other side in one piece. A little broken, chipped, and dented, but nevertheless in one piece. Your job, your only job is to see to it that she has the time and space to do that.”

“Been waiting, Em. I haven’t left this fucking hall unless it’s to shower or take a piss for the last week. How much longer am I gonna have to stand out here looking like an asshole before I get to see her, just see her? I don’t give a shit if she doesn’t talk to me, if she doesn’t say a word it’s all good as long as I can see for myself she’s doing alright,” I growl pushing off the wall.

“I can’t answer that, Tanner,” Emily replies using my given name, which tells me she’s serious seeing as no one calls me by anything other than my road name. “You, like everyone else, are just going to have to wait until she is ready. When that is is anyone’s guess, but I can assure you, she’s healing. It might only be physically for now, but that’s better than the alternative which would be not at all.”

I fucking despise that she’s right. Avery doesn’t need me making things worse for her. What she needs is someone calm and in control of their emotions, and that’s not me. In fact, there couldn’t be a worse description of what I feel right now.

Not seeing Avery since I carried her limp, lifeless body out of the room she was tortured in is killing me. Literally and figuratively. I can’t eat, can’t sleep, and I don’t get a moments peace from the voices in my head that are telling me this is all my fault.

Rationally I know it isn’t. I know that I’m no more responsible for what happened to her than any other man, woman, or child here at the clubhouse. But where they and I differ is that I could have put a stop to it before it started. If I wasn’t so hell bent on shutting her out of my life, avoiding her at all costs, and in turn, offloading my job of watching her to a prospect, this would never have happened.

Avery wouldn’t have been raped, beaten, and tortured for information for days on end. Beth, Boss’ woman wouldn’t be suffering the same night terrors Avery is and mourning Bec’s death. At the same time, Jonas wouldn’t be grieving the woman he believed was his one and only chance at happiness, burying her and his dreams two days ago.

Like I said, it all comes back to me. My selfishness. My anger. My desire to put distance between us. If I’d just relented that night when Boss told me to follow the women to the bar to make sure they were safe, I would’ve seen the vehicles tailing them. I could have alerted someone, had my brothers there in less than ten minutes. That’s not how it played out, though, and because it didn’t, the guilt I feel I’ll carry with me until the day I die.

Emily tugs sharply on my ear, something she does to get all the boys attention seeing as she’s too short to smack us upside the back of our heads.

“I know what you’re thinking, and I’m telling you, don’t. Not only won’t it do any good, but it also won't change anything. You can go round and round in circles, Tanner about should’ve, could’ve, would’ve, but there’s no changing the facts – Avery and Beth were hurt and Bec is gone. That’s the horrible truth of it. But as tragic as it is, no amount of beating yourself up about it is going to bring that sweet girl back from the dead, or fix the two broken women that God saw fit to spare. All you can do now is move forward, and in doing so, hope and pray that they do too.”

How she knew exactly what I was thinking is beyond me, but Emily’s always had a knack for reading the brothers minds. She calls it a gift, whereas we call it a curse. Whatever it is, it’s uncanny.

“Don’t know if I’m in a place that I can offer you that assurance, Em,” I admit. “I would if I could, but I’m thinking it’s gonna take me some time to get there.”

Taking my face in her hands, holding it gently but firmly between her tiny palms, Emily pulls my head down so that we’re at eye level.

“Take all the time you need, sweetie. While you do, I’ll keep an eye on our girl. I think it’s time you ask Boss if you can take the time to go for a nice, long ride. Put some highway behind you and what’s going on here for a spell, Tanner. It’ll do you the world of good. And who knows, when you get back things might be looking up.”

I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t thought about it – just me, my bike, an endless tank of gas, and a few thousand miles of highway – but I don’t necessarily agree that now is the right time to be taking off.

Boss, Diesel, Gage, Sly, and myself have been discussing how to answer Hells Riders declaration of war for days. The reality is, we’ve come up short on every plan we’ve worked through to its disappointing end. Whatever we do has to be swift, devastating to their club, and permanent. There’s no way around it – Hells Riders has to answer for their part in our women’s abduction.

MC’s don’t work the same way as laymen. We operate by our own rules, our own code, and our own set of beliefs. Beliefs such as you never, fucking ever recruit women or children as pawns in a game no one but the opposition knows the rules of. Following closely on its heels is, no harm shall come to women or children. Ever. It doesn’t matter if they’re attached to an MC or not, women and children are off limits.

While none of us should be surprised at their involvement, especially since this isn’t Hells Riders first foray into kidnapping, rape, and torture, we were. It hadn’t crossed our minds they would have the wherewithal to align themselves with another MC (one they patched over to gain strength in numbers), a shady as fuck lawyer holding a mean grudge, and a Columbian drug cartel syndicate.

The patience their plan took, the number of players involved, the manipulation, and lies they would have had to weave proved one thing. Hells Riders were planning something, and this wasn’t it. This was simply a stepping stone on their way to a greater goal. A goal we weren’t privy to.

Looking at the woman before me, I shake my head to clear my thoughts. Emily was right when she said it would do me good to get out of here for a while. I need to put some distance between Avery and I until I can face her and give her the apology she deserves. An apology that I believe, not a token gesture. Because honestly, at the moment, I don’t know if I can give her that.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m sorry, more than fucking sorry, about what happened to her, what she went through, what she’s still going through. I’d happily take away her pain and make it my own if I could. I’d suffer every lash, every violation, every kick and slap if it helped her heal. But sadly, I can’t, and she doesn’t need a man offering her platitudes and half apologies.

If you’re as confused as I am as to why my sorry wouldn’t come across as sincere, hopefully, this should clear it up. For all of us.

Her pain, nightmares, bruises, lacerations, the deep wounds on her wrists from the cuffs that embedded themselves in her skin, and the scars on Avery’s soul are my fault entirely. Everything she relives as her tears fall in rivers is my fault. However, there’s a small part of me that can’t help thinking, was what happened to her the lesser of two evils? At least, she’s alive. She’s breathing and has a chance at healing and maybe, one day being whole again.

But with me, the harbinger of death and destruction, would Avery have had the same chance? The only answer I can come up with after dissecting it, mulling it over, and weighing it every which way is, no. Avery never had a hope in hell of getting out the other end of a relationship with me whole. She didn’t have the first clue about what she was getting herself into with me. None.

Avery might think she knows me, but other than what I’ve shown her of the man I am, which is very little, she has no idea of who I am and what I’m capable of. She doesn’t know that I took pleasure in delivering pain to men in underground fights for years before I gave it up. Avery hasn’t met the man who without conscience beats the shit out of men for fucking with his MC.

Worse still, Avery will never see the man who is capable of loving so deeply that she’d feel it down to the very depths of her soul. Why? Because that man is dead.

My slow, agonizing death began when my parents and sister burned alive. It continued when my only two living relatives passed into the great beyond leaving me with no one. And finally, it came full circle when my wife and son, the family I was building, were taken from me in an act of violence that consumed the last remaining piece of my heart.

And with that, I make a decision, another in a long line of decisions I’ll probably come to regret.

“Call to check in every day. If I don’t get a call from you, even if it’s only once, I’ll turn my bike around and point it home, yeah?”

Nodding solemnly, Emily orders,

“Go and speak to your President and then commune with your brethren before you leave. She won’t let you in, but that doesn’t mean she can’t hear you through the door, so make sure you come back and tell her you’re going before you do. She needs to hear that. She needs to know that life keeps moving even when she wants it to stand still.”