Page 3 of Sweet Revenge

My mind drifted back to that day when I walked into the Sinners Motorcycle Club or MC as most people called them. I’d learned a lot of club lingo over the years, most of which I wish I never knew, but some that had helped me turn the tables on Snake’s club, the Black Widows. A prospect, a kid wanting to become a member of the club, was manning the door and called for Bear, who I knew to be the president of the Sinners. I’d sat quietly on a barstool until he walked through the side door, wiping his hands on a red rag. It was clear to see grease staining the rag and his hands, telling me he was a mechanic.

After I introduced myself and told him why I’d come, he seemed to be on high alert, and at one point, he called his vice president, Gunner, to come and talk as well. My body warmed at the memory I had of him walking through the same door I’d come through only minutes before, and I allowed the warmth to settle in my bones. I let myself enjoy it, if only for the moment I was experiencing it. He was the most handsome man I’d ever seen up close, never believing anyone could be that handsome. I remember dropping my head, unable to handle two people at one time. I was okay with one, but more than that and I would shut down. Gunner seemed to pick up on that and walked behind the bar, out of my sight, so in my mind, I was still only talking to Bear even though I knew Gunner was listening. I explained what I’d heard and explained I wanted to help the Sinners, who I knew hated the Black Widows, shut them down for good. They were skeptical, but I provided all the information I had, and when I was done talking, Bear asked me what I wanted out of it.

I remember pausing because I hadn’t given any thought to what I hoped to gain. I just wanted it all to stop. It wasn’t a surprise when Luke popped into my mind, and I knew at that moment that what I was doing, I was doing for him.

My savior.

The one light in my dark world.

I remember my heart aching with the thought of losing those rare moments with someone kind, but I also knew I had to help him the way he’d always helped me. He just never knew he had. I told them I couldn’t bear to see an innocent woman and child hurt if I could stop it. I didn’t want them to know I was doing it for Luke. I didn’t want anyone to know that I’d built a fantasy around him; a life I knew I’d never have, but I dreamed of all the same.

They agreed, and it wasn’t long before I had information to provide the Sinners that would eventually begin to tear down the Widows. The Widows dealt in drugs and prostitution—it was how they made their money—so interrupting a shipment would be a huge blow to their sales and their pockets. I overheard the information, met Bear at a coffee house in a part of town the Widows would never go, and told him everything I knew.

They interrupted that shipment, basically handing it off to a Mexican gang called the Diablos, a gang the Widows had been fighting with over territory for a few years, and they started a war. I expected the beating, knowing I would be on the receiving end of Snake’s frustration after such a huge loss. I wasn’t surprised when it happened, and I’d hoped Luke would come to visit me, which he did, but this time, he was different. He was solemn and offered no help. He asked me why I was doing what I was doing, and more specifically, why I was helping Bear. I was surprised he knew, but I didn’t pretend it wasn’t true. Instead, I told him the truth or at least the truth I was willing to share.

I told him I wanted him to have a happy life, that he deserved it. He was the only person to offer me help or kindness since my mom died, and I wanted to return the favor. He tried, which I expected, to scare me by telling me Snake would find out and kill me. What he didn’t realize until I admitted it to him was that had been my hope.

Snake had won. I couldn’t live in his world anymore, and I didn’t want to live in the rest of the world either. I was tired. I felt like I’d lived hundreds of years when I was only in my twenties. I wanted it all to end, but I wanted to end it on my terms, doing something for someone I cared about. The only person I’d cared about since I lost my mom.

I should’ve known Luke Dimarco would never let a woman suffer if he could do something about it. I never made it back to Snake. Luke arranged it so I was picked up outside the hospital and taken to a bar under the guise of an impromptu meeting with Bear, but it was Luke trying one last time to save me. I hated him at that moment, the moment I realized I was trading one prison for another by being placed in the Sinners care because he had cheated me out of dying on my own terms.

I hated him and loved him all the same.

I wouldn’t see Luke for a long time after that night. I’d heard he was living with his girlfriend and her son from Bear’s sister, Becs, who visited me every day while I was locked away in the Sinners clubhouse. I wasn’t allowed to go out for fear the Widows would see me and start a war between the clubs. According to Becs, the Widows chapter in North Carolina was falling apart. They were fighting to survive, to beat the predators swooping in for territory from the weakened Widows, but the Sinners still wanted to stay off their radar. She said they hoped the Widows and the Diablos would destroy each other without the Sinners ever being involved. The Sinners had cleaned up their club, making money legally, and became a club that was about brotherhood, love of bikes, and freedom. They did not want to sacrifice that by going to war, so they hid me away.

At least in my new prison nobody beat me. They didn’t really talk to me either, all except for Becs. I started to like her the more she visited. She was fun and outgoing in way I could never be. She laughed all the time and told me funny stories of time spent with her brother and their friends from childhood. She kept me up to date on everything in the outside world and one day even told me that Luke was finally marrying the woman I’d seen him with, the woman I knew he loved by only seeing them together. Kate. Her name was as beautiful as she was. I was happy for him, but sad in a way that was like losing something you never really had, but always dreamed of.

She told me it was to be an outside wedding, and the Sinners members were all invited because over the years and through extreme circumstances they’d become friends with the Dimarco family. According to Becs, it was a huge family. From the sound of it, it was one I could only imagine actually existed. They didn’t sound real, not to a girl from the streets who only ever had her mom and ate from dumpsters.

They were a dream I knew I wanted to experience once in my lifetime and even if only from afar.

I begged Becs to take me to that wedding. I wanted to see it from a distance and experience a life I would never know and to watch the one good man, the only good man I knew, get married. Because he deserved it and I needed to let the dream die. There was no better way than to watch my dream smile at the love of his life while she walked to him and vowed to be his forever.

I needed it, and thankfully, Becs agreed after many days of begging. I had never, not one day in my life, been too proud to beg. Pride wasn’t something a girl like me knew or ever had, and it never would be.

That spring day was beautiful. Of course it would be for a man like Luke. I hadn’t been outside in the sun for almost nine months while I was being hidden away, but the sun was shining that day, hot against my cool skin. The temperature felt perfect with the little breeze in the air. I found a spot behind a garden shed and hid myself in the shadows, the perfect spot to watch where they’d never see me. Becs sat with Bear, but I could tell she was nervous about my being there. I hadn’t told her where I would be, just told her I’d meet her about a mile down the road after the ceremony in the same spot I had her drop me off so I could make my way quietly through the wooded area around the house, knowing they would never hear me.

I was good at being invisible.

But not invisible enough. I never heard him, never knew he was behind me, and never even sensed him, which I’d become good at over the years. I was lost in the beauty of the wedding before me. I’d never been to one, but I figured this would still be the most beautiful one I’d ever see. I’d leaned my head against the side of the shed and watched Luke smile while he recited his vows, even reaching over to brush away her tear with his thumb when her son, Luke’s best man, handed the ring to Luke and he slid it on her finger.

I’d dropped my head and realized I’d seen enough. I’d killed the dream, which was what I’d been hoping for, so I turned with the intention of walking back through the woods. I wanted time to go slowly, time to just enjoy the sunshine on my skin and pretend I was once again living freely in this unforgiving world.

What I turned into was the blackest darkness I’d ever seen in the eyes of a man I once trusted with my life eighteen days before I turned eighteen.

A sign I once thought meant I was saved.

And it began hours of the worst hell I’d ever experienced.

CHAPTER FOUR

MAGGIE

I drifted in and out of consciousness, having no idea what day it was or how long I’d been in the hospital. I heard voices, but they were soft and often too low for me to clearly make out their words. I didn’t care. I didn’t want to talk to anyone. I was angry to be alive, feeling that I was once again cheated out of the reprieve only death could bring me.

The voices became louder and louder each time I heard them until eventually I was hearing them plainly. I recognized Becs’s voice almost immediately, and if I had the energy to smile, I would have. She was the light in an otherwise dark world I’d once again found myself living in. When I heard her crying, the urge to comfort her became too much, and I forced my eyes open, but it was a struggle.

I blinked several times, the light in the room bright and unwelcome, so I closed them again, but hearing her sniff forced them open. My eyes flicked around the room until they finally landed on Becs standing close to the door in Bear’s strong arms. Her head was buried in his chest, and his head was bent, settled close to her ear, whispering something I couldn’t hear, but I could imagine would be soft words to comfort her. They were close, and from the stories Becs had shared with me, he would never want her to hurt.

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