Page 46 of Diesel
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Ellie
“Laundry.” Tammy snapped her fingers at me. I didn’t mind helping out, but I didn’t see why she had to be so nasty about it. “Change all the sheets. Laundry room is down the left hall.”
I shot her a curt smile and scurried off. I started stripping the beds in the girls’ rooms, doing my best not to think about what could be on those sheets. I figured that would keep me busy for a while. To be honest, I was nervous about changing the guys’ sheets. Not that they would be any cleaner than the girls. I had been around long enough to know what went on practically everywhere. It was more that I was intimidated to even go in their rooms, let alone the fact that I would have to ask them all if I could. Most of them had been nice to me, so I wasn’t sure why I was still so scared. Every one of them except the one that I had come here to see, that was.
Diesel still hardly spoke more than five words to me at a time. Most of the time he did his best to avoid me. And when we were in the same room, he would try his best to not look at me while he clenched his jaw.
Sometimes, there were those moments when I would catch him watching me and I saw something else in his eyes. I was never good at reading people, so I had no idea what it was. Something inside me pulled towards him in those moments. But I kept my distance. It was hard enough being there knowing he wasn’t very far away. The anger and rejection that poured off of him most of the time was enough to make me want to run and hide whenever we collided.
Fighting to carry the heavy and overflowing basket, I tried to find where the laundry room was. It was late at night and for some reason, there didn’t seem to be many people around. This was usually the time things got cranking and the men started drinking.
Letting out a heavy sigh, I opened the first door. Nope, it was just a storage closet.Wow, that’s a lot of bleach.But I guessed with that many men to clean after, it was needed.
Right as I was about to open the next door, a strange noise caught my attention. I turned and waited to hear it again. It sounded like someone screaming out in pain. I quickly opened the door on the other side of the hall, not really thinking about what I was doing. If someone needed help I might have been the only one around to hear them. There was no way I could ignore that.
An odd smell wafted through the open door. It was something I wasn’t familiar with and it burned my nose making my eyes water. I fought the urge to gag and cough. Through the door was a long set of concrete stairs.
This must be the basement. Hm, maybe the washer is down here. Two birds, one stone. I hope.
The light was dim as I carefully made my way down the stairs. The smell got stronger and my stomach clenched tight. Then I heard it. An awful noise that I couldn’t place and the strangled screaming I’d heard before. I stepped down three more stairs and craned my neck to see into the middle of the room.
Gasping hard, I dropped the basket. It landed with a loudthudmaking him turn to me. And by him, I mean Diesel. The other guy, who was tied to a table and looking half-conscious, probably didn’t even notice I was there. I backed up, but being on stairs I stumbled a little and hit the wall. Luckily, I didn’t go tumbling down like the basket had.
I closed my eyes tight. There was no way what I had just seen was real. My mind had to be playing tricks on me. But it wasn’t. No, the image was burned into the back of my lids as vivid as it had been in reality.
Diesel was bent over some shirtless guy with a blowtorch in his hand. He was burning the skin of the guys back. The guy’s eyes were unfocused and his mouth hung open as if it were stuck in a silent scream. Drool and blood pooled out of his mouth, leaving a sticky, thick line connecting to the table. His cheek and nose were split open. His body looked like it had been worked over with something heavy and hard. The bruises were already forming a deep black color.
I inhaled through my nose trying to calm myself. It couldn’t have been real. My eyes must have been deceiving me. My mind playing some kind of crazy trick. But the smell was still there. And in that moment I knew what that smell was. It was unlike any other and something I had never experience before. Something I hoped I would never experience again. I opened my eyes, and sure enough, the scene was still there. Only now, Diesel was standing straight, looking my way with a blank expression on his face, and the torch was off. His eyes were such a deep blue that he was almost unrecognizable to me.
“Oh my—” I turned, panicking and needing to get away as fast as I could.
I stumbled up the stairs, only half aware of his heavy footsteps coming fast behind me. I hit the door jamb with my shoulder as I fell into the hall. Then I hit a wall.
No, it wasn’t a wall. It was Bocca. I looked up at him, tears running down my cheeks. His expression was hard, something I hadn’t seen on him before. He grabbed my arm, but not tightly, just enough to hold me up. Which was good, because I felt like I was about to collapse. His eye flicked behind me and without turning, I knew Diesel was there.
“Ellie,” Diesel said in a tone that held no emotion. But I shook my head looking up at Bocca with pleading eyes as I fisted his shirt.
“I got it,” Bocca said as he wrapped an arm around my shoulders and guided me away.
What did that mean? Was he aware of what was going on down there? Oh gosh, were they going to killmenow? I felt the urge to vomit. I pushed off of Bocca and ran as fast as I could, holding my hand over my mouth like it could hold back the bile somehow. I didn’t slow down until I was kneeling in front of one of the toilets in the girls’ bathroom. Then it came. Everything I had eaten in the last month. Or so it felt like it.
“Here,” Jessica’s calm and sweet voice said as I fell away from the toilet, my back on the tiled stall wall. I reached out and took the cool, wet rag she was offering me.
“I-is that normal?” My voice was shaky. Jessica let out a soft, sad sigh and helped me to my feet. She led me over to the sink and gave me some mouthwash. I swished, trying to rid my mouth of the acid taste and my mind of what I’d seen.
“We don’t ever really truly know everything that goes on,” she said, leaning her hip against the counter. Her demeanor was cool as ever. “But living here, you hear things and you can put the pieces together. This is a different kind of life than what you are probably used to. But I can tell you this, these guys don’t do violence for violence sake. If whatever you saw seemed bad, it wasn’t without purpose.”
I opened my mouth to tell her exactly what I had seen, but she stopped me by holding up her hand. I nodded and waited for her to finish. I guessed it was something we weren’t even supposed to talk about.
“This is a brotherhood. A family. They look out for each other and they will do anything to keep their family safe. In this club’s case, that often extends to the people they hold close, the old ladies, the club girls, and this town.” She watched me intently for a beat before she continued. “Yes, some of it may be outside of the law, but it has a reason. The reason now being, that guy they have down there is the one that killed one of their brothers. He had a wife and children. The club feels they failed.Dieselfeels he failed Stone and his family. There is no greater reason to take revenge.”
“So, in a way, this is justified…” I croaked out.
I was trying to wrap my head around this way of thinking. It wasn’t what I had grown up knowing and living in, but did that make it wrong? My head was swimming and I needed time for it all to sink in.
“In the eyes of these guys, yes. And I can’t say I disagree.” She looked like she was thinking long and hard about something. Maybe it was just how much she should share with me. I wasn’t sure if I could take much more at that moment. “Being down there, well, it’s sort of Diesel’s job. His role in the club. Well, it was until recently. Anyway, he kinda… needs time to come back after that. So I would let it ride for a while. Might be best if you rested for a little bit.”
