Page 61 of Always Yours

“Ah we had the place torched. As for the body, that was just someone we decided to dispose of,” Matteo says, waving me off.

“You will pay for this,” I say, my voice cold.

“It’s only a matter of time until my Liliana comes. Then I will dispose of all of you,” he says before leaving and locking a very heavy looking door behind him.

“Where’s Sophie? Does that bitch Rebecca still have her?” Nick asks in a desperate tone.

I shake my head. “Rebecca is dead. Lily sliced her up pretty good. Sophie was at the club when the bomb went off. I don’t know if anyone survived,” I choke out.

“Fuck!” he shouts.

I look to Lily’s family. “He’s right. Lily will be coming, but she’s different than what he’s expecting.”

“She doesn’t stand a chance against him. That man is pure evil,” her brother says.

“Lily is capable of more than you know,” I tell them.

“I never wanted this for her. I was glad she got out,” Lorenzo chokes out.

I look at him coldly. “Your parents were marrying her off to the sick bastard. They only have themselves to blame. They will pay for everything they did.”

He shakes his head. “I don’t know how you think Liliana will get us out of this.”

“Lily is nothing like you remember. She has more strength than you realise,” I grind out.

I start coughing, but I look over at Switch who is looking at me like he’s got a thousand questions in his mind.

So, I tell him. I tell him everything that happened since we thought he was dead. That Rebecca had taken Sophie away, but that Sophie ran back to us when a man had been abusing her and her mother had just let it continue. How my son, Torch, made sure that man regretted ever laying a hand on her. I tell him how I finally found Ella after all these years. Bianca had died of breast cancer, and Ella had come to the club because she had accidentally gotten pregnant by one of the brothers. I let him know Bear has been taking care of Sophie, her man, and their kids. His eyes light up when he hears that he’s a grandpa, but then he breaks out in a sob when it really occurs to him all of Sophie’s milestones that he had missed. I reassure him that we will get out of here. Lily will make sure of that. He nods his head in agreement. Lily is a strong woman, and he knows exactly what she is capable of.

I’m exhausted by the time I finish telling Switch everything he would want to know. By the end of it, everyone in the room has shed some tears.

As much as I don’t want Lily to come to this hell, I know that nothing will keep her from me.

I just hope that I am still alive to see her, at least one last time.

Lily

I can’t find Derek anywhere. I had looked over everything a thousand times. The cameras were all destroyed during the bomb.

Panic took over when I realised that he was gone. Brothers had helped me look, but we were short men due to so many being injured and needing to mend. No harm had really come to me. I was covered in large bruises, but I just breathed through the pain.

I cry into Katy’s arms when I finally must admit to myself that Derek is not at the clubhouse. I force myself to believe Derek isn’t dead, but I’m feeling sick with fear that he is.

I head to the hospital to check in on everyone else.

If I had any technical knowledge, I could hack into any camera in the city, but I don’t. I will have to wait for Tech if I want to be able to get information that way.

Every time Derek is taken from me, I feel equal amounts of rage and loss. Derek became my everything over the years. The fact that we don’t know what happened to Derek is killing me. Was he hurt in the explosion? Who would have taken him?

My family comes to my mind, but I don’t want to think of the possibility that they have him. Who knows what they would do to him if they did find us after all those years.

We spent thirty years without them finding out where I was.

The only time we had heard anything was through word of mouth that Nick and Bear’s parents were killed. Nick had made plans to get his inheritance. Since Bear was basically disowned by them at a very young age, they didn’t even know that he was alive to give him anything.

I remember Nick setting up a meeting with a lawyer, and he had told me that everything was left to Sophie. He had changed his will right away since he didn’t trust Rebecca. She had money on her mind ever since her parents disowned her for getting pregnant by a biker.

I had a feeling that someone would have had to know where we were all these years, but no one ever came.

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