Page 86 of Massacre
“LET ME GO!” I roared, trying to fight my way free as another man rushed into the cabin.
“Help us!” Gunner shouted as Winchester jumped into the fray to hold me down.
Winchester’s voice cut through the haze of my fury. “Massacre, you need to calm down, brother. We need to talk this through.”
I could hear the concern in his voice, but my mind was clouded with rage. I bucked and thrashed, but their hold on me was strong.
“Let me go,” I snarled, my voice hoarse with anger. “I need to find that son of a bitch and make him pay for what he did to her.”
Winchester’s grip tightened, and he leaned in close, his voice low and urgent. “We will, brother. We will find him and make him pay. But you need to calm the fuck down. You are scaring Amber.”
I stilled, my breath coming in ragged gasps as the weight of my anger threatened to crush me, and I turned my head to find my woman crying in Haizley’s arms.
“Amber,” I whispered reverently.
“I didn’t tell you because I was ashamed and scared. I thought that if you knew, you would leave me.” My heart clenched at my woman’s words, as the fire in my veins ebbed, leaving behind a cold, hard determination. “I love you so much, and I’m sorry for not trusting you enough to tell you the truth.”
I closed my eyes, willing the rage to subside, and felt a single tear slide down my cheek. Pushing the men off me, I scrambled to my feet, reaching for my woman, pulling her into my arms as she cried.
“Never, baby. Nothing would ever make me stop loving you, baby. God, Amber. I’ve been in love with you from the moment I met you. I knew the second you looked at me you were mine. I love you, baby. So fucking much,” I crooned, holding her tight, when she whispered, “Promise me you won’t do anything stupid. That you’ll let the club handle this.”
A promise.
She wanted a promise that I wouldn’t seek my own vengeance. I wanted to give her that, to assure her I would do as she asked. But as I felt the fury recede, a cold, calculated calm took its place.
“I can’t make that promise, baby,” I said, my voice steady. “I won’t rest until Daniel Scott is dead, and anyone else involved pays for what they did to you. I won’t stop until they’re all rotting in the ground.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
Massacre
The night bled slowly as the hours slipped away in a haze of tense silence and brittle anticipation. Every shadow felt heavier, every creak in the floorboards wound the spool of dread in my chest tighter. Amber clung to me, her breath hitching as she drifted in and out of restless sleep, and I watched the door, my mind replaying the promise I could not give.
I wanted to give her the world, but the one thing she asked for, I couldn’t give. It wasn’t in my nature. Never would be. My job was to protect. I was good at it. Proficient. Something I took very seriously. And I knew as long as the motherfucker walked this earth, my woman would never truly be safe.
“You are going to go after Dan and kill him, aren’t you?” Her voice, barely a whisper, broke the silence of the room.
Holding her closer, I kissed the top of her head and nodded. “Yeah, babe. I am.”
Moving away from me, she sat up in bed as I gently rubbed circles on her back.
“I never knew my adoptive mother. She died a few months after my adoption. Well, that’s what Haizley told me. Harold never talked about his wife. All I knew was him and me. I was twelve when I started my period for the first time. That’s when he told me I was no longer his daughter. That it was my fault his wife died and I was now old enough to take her place.
“That was the first night he raped me. After that night, he moved me into his room. From then on, he would fuck me, saying I owed him for his missed conjugal visits. When I wentto school, everyone looked at me. I think the teachers knew, but they said nothing. Growing up in the Deep South, people minded their own business. I had just started high school when a teacher finally pulled me aside to ask the unthinkable. You see, my art teacher, Mrs. Stein, wasn’t from Alabama. She was from Connecticut and had a very distinct opinion of what was right and wrong. When she asked me about the bruises on my arms, I said nothing, but she knew. That was the first time Social Services showed up at the house, and it was the last. The investigator was Harold’s cousin. As for Mrs. Stein, well, the school fired her shortly after. I never saw her again.
“I never had friends. The teachers never acknowledged me unless it was to take roll call. I went to school and then straight home, where I cleaned, cooked, and did laundry. I only had two books he allowed me to read. One was calledThe Good Wife’s Guide.”
“The what?” I asked, confused, unsure I had heard her correctly.
Looking over her shoulder at me, I noticed her smile didn’t reach her eyes. “Housekeeping Monthlypublished an article in 1955 for women, detailing all the ways that a wife should act and how best she can be a partner to her husband and mother to her children.”
“You’re fucking joking, right?”
She shook her head. “I wish I were. Women in the South lived by that book. It was a religion to some. As for me, it taught me how not to get hit. But it didn’t stop the other thing.”
“What was the other book?”
“The Bible,” she muttered, turning back around. “It’s probably why I don’t believe in God. I mean, I believe in a higher power, but not a man who could allow what Harold did to me. I thought when I killed Harold my life would be different, and in a way it was. I went from having a roof over my head andfood in my belly to living on the streets and starving. But in the end, it was still more of the same. I did manage to work some odd jobs here and there, but it was never enough to erase my past. When I met Dan, he promised me everything. I believed him because he wasn’t like everyone else. He was so handsome. I’d never met anyone who dressed in tailored suits before, and when he took me to his place, I was afraid to touch anything because I might taint it. He was patient with me, gentle, kind even. I think on some level I was so starved for affection, I’d let the Devil himself court me for a kind smile. Things were good at first. He showered me with love and affection I didn’t know I’d been craving. He gave me everything I asked for, and in return, all he wanted was me, and I was okay with that.
