Page 93 of Bound By Fate
“You’ll fuckin’ stop.” Cruz’s eyes flashed to the Ravage MC men saying without words the threat, but it was palpable in the air.
The two men with the gurney stopped, and Cruz walked right up to the black bag laying on the gurney. He reached up and began to unzip it.
My body started to tremble, and I wanted to close my eyes and pretend I was anywhere but there.
“Please look here,” Cruz said, holding the bag opened.
“I don’t want to,” I told him.
“Please, Wild Kat. Need you to see that it’s not me. Need you to know I’d never do that shit to you,” Dryerson, maybe, said from the other side of the gurney.
I had no idea why, but my feet took me closer to the bag, and I looked down at the man who was a reflection of the live one next to him.
So identical. Down to the eyebrows and the small crease between them.
How was that even possible.
Twins? They looked like clones and Dry, my Dry, didn’t know about it.
Then there was the blood, a lot of blood that seeped through the man’s shirt and I had no idea where I'd shot him. It had to be somewhere in the torso area from how he came at me.
My stomach started to roil. Dead bodies were not an everyday occurrence for me, and this one, looking so much like the man that I loved killed me inside.
Cruz touched my arm, and I jumped. “Now look at your man.” My eyes flew up to Dryerson who was pleading with me without saying anything. “They may look alike, but that’s where it ends. That man,” he pointed to the body bag, “was a nobody.” Then he pointed at the man who lived. “That one is your man.”
My eyes bounced back and forth between the men. One dead. One alive. Both looking like the man I'd fallen in love with. My heart thundered as a headache started to build in my head.
“Where were you?” I asked the man standing. He was supposed to be the one picking me up.
“Was with the brothers handling business. Every single one of these men will tell you exactly where I was the entire time.”
“But how do I know you’re you and not,” my eyes flitted down to the body, “him?”
His face flinched like I’d struck him, and I knew it hurt; he didn’t try to hide any of it, just let me see the raw emotion flowing. “First time I met you, you called me surfer boy when I had to escort you to the clubhouse. We stayed there, got to know one another, and ended up in bed. I fuckin’ carried you out of that hellhole and took you to safety. I played Trolls for the millionth time with you and Remy. You helped me clean up my body when I was covered in dirt and cuts. I took care of you when you were sick. I paid for the pizza, and you gave me shit for it. We stayed up talking while I rubbed your feet on Micah’s couch. And because I’m the one that fuckin’ loves you.”
Fresh tears fell from my eyes as I remembered each and every instance he spoke about. Each one made me fall more and more in love with this man.
“Please, Wild Kat. See me,” he implored. This big, strong man was cracking inside.
My eyes flittered down to the dead man, thinking about how he’d handled me. How rough he was. How he didn’t treat me with the kindness that my man had treated me with.But two different men?
My knees completely went out, and it caught everyone around me off guard as I crashed to the ground. Ensley was there on her knees next to me. “It’s okay. I swear to you. This is all true. I’d never lie to you. Me of all people, you know that.”
My voice was low when I answered, “I do believe you.”
Dryerson was there close to me, bent to the ground. Hesitantly, he put his hand in the sweet spot on my neck between my head and shoulder. The one spot that he could always calm me.
It was him.
This was him.
The man I loved.
He didn’t do anything to me but love me.
His touch I’d never mistake for another’s. The one that took all my fears and anxiety away, allowing me to breathe.
I fell into Dryerson’s arms, my entire body shaking. He fell to his butt in the grass, and I curled into him, clutching him like he’d leave me with the snap of a finger.
