Page 47 of Tess, Property of Blaze

Blaze

Imake my way to the main room of the clubhouse where my brothers are waiting. I see Prez and some guy leave the room we call church. He has long blond hair that’s tied back and is wearing a plaid shirt. He stares at me when he passes, and I can make out right away that he’s high on something.

Prez stops in front of me, smirking. “We have our cocaine.” He must sense that something’s not right, because he asks, “What’s up?”

“We need to talk.”

He stares at me for a moment then nods. He leads me into our church room and shuts the door after me. “What’s going on?” He turns to face me with his arms crossed.

“I need to be the one to go in there tonight.”

Prez shakes his head. “Blaze, we’ve already spoken about this. Tracker is going in. Don’t worry, we will have eyes on him.” He drops his arms to his side and steps closer.

“This is not about Tracker, it’s about Tess!” I shout out, turning around and kicking one of the chairs.

“Hey! Listen, Blaze, I know this is hard on you. I get that. Your woman is married to Viper and grew up in that club. Fuck! I know if that was Jasmine, I would want to tear shit up.”

“Exactly!” I yell. ”I need to be the one to go in there, I need to look that fucker in the face and—”

“And what?” Quill interrupts. “You need to remember, Blaze, this all started because we’re helping out Luke’s sister, Amy. We need to get her out of there if they’re the ones that have her. I say if, but my gut tells me she’s there. We owe this to Tate, to help him.”

“I get that, Prez, I do.”

“Don’t you think Viper will take one look at you and know who you are? Come on, Blaze, be smart about this.” He taps his finger to his temple. “You know you’re not the right man for this.”

Turning away from Prez in frustration, I sigh, knowing he’s right. “She’s gone back to him,” I mumble.

“She? You mean Tess?”

I turn around. “Yeah, Tess. She’s gone back to Viper.”

Quill rubs the back of his neck. “I’m sorry, man. To be honest, the situation of Tess and Viper still doesn’t make sense to me. She was here for two years—she was our family. What was her reason for coming here?”

“I can’t give too much detail because I’m still trying to get my head around it, but since today, I’ve found out that Tess ran from Viper because he… he….” I stutter, a lump forming in my throat. “He… he abused her,” I spit out, my hand reaching out to the table, squeezing the hell out of the edge. Tears burn my eyes as I try to hold back my emptions. Fuck! This is not me. I don’t cry and shit.

“Say what?” Prez chokes out, and I look up at him.

“Shit, man. She ran away from him because he was beatin’ her and shit. Even raped her.” I look down at the floor and pull at the ends of my hair. “And all I did was yell at her to leave.”

“Fuck, man. I’m sorry,” Quill says, squeezing my shoulder with his hand. “Why would she not tell you from the start.”

“I don’t know. Maybe she didn’t want to relive it, or maybe she thought I wouldn’t love her—I have no fuckin’ clue. All I know is, I’ve driven her back to the man who beat her, and I can only imagine what he’s doin’ to her as we speak.” Fisting my hand, I slam it down on the table a few times, trying to rid any images of Viper touching her out of my head. I turn to Prez. “I need to get her out of there. I can’t let her think that I’ve given up on her and forced her back to him. I can’t,” I repeat.

Prez sighs and drops his head, his hands on his hips. He then looks up at me. “You have my word that we’ll do what we can to get her out of there. I promise,” he states, the look in his eyes proving to me that he means every word. “But… you need to let me do it my way. Let Tracker be the one to go in, and the rest will be up to us.”

“What do you mean?” I ask.

He smirks then walks to the door and opens it up. “Boys, get your asses in here.”

The guys all make their way into church and take their seats. Prez walks to his chair and sits down, then eyes me, gesturing for me to take a seat. So I do.

“Boys, in an hour we’re going to be heading down to the warehouse. Jimmy was good enough to give up some coke.” Laughter breaks out around the room, because it wasn’t really a gift—let’s just say, Jimmy was forced to give it up.

“There’s been a slight change to our plans tonight.”

I link my hands in front of me, wondering what changes Prez has in mind. “We’re all goin’ into the warehouse tonight.” Prez eyes me, and I nod.

Noise erupts around the room, some of the boys asking what’s changed, but most have smiles on their faces—they’re very much up for the action.

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