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“You’re still together, Amelia,” he whispered against my lips. “If you were really falling apart, trust me, I’d be the first person to know, probably before you even knew yourself.”
More tears streamed down my face. “But why her, Cole?” I sobbed. “Why did he have to choose to kill Heather?”
“Even though he knew he could get to me through you, he wanted to affect the entire club, mainly my parents. Your death would not devastate them, but Heather’s would. He did exactly what he wanted to accomplish.”
I looked at the half drank bottle of liquor on Cole’s nightstand. How was that even though he had been drinking, I still believed and trusted in everything he said?
He pressed a kiss to my temple. “Come on. Let’s lay down and go to sleep. We’ll talk more in the morning.”
After lifting me up into his arms, he carried me over to his bed and laid me down. But instead of the peaceful sleep I was sure Cole was hoping I would get, I tossed and turned all night, tormented by the images and flashbacks of what I endured with that bastard and seeing Heather’s dead body beside me for so many days.
* * *
Cole
I didn’t geta wink of fucking sleep last night. I was up most of the night trying to keep Amelia still, and when she started screaming in her sleep, it was almost impossible to wake her up. This shit was affecting her badly and tearing her up inside.
I’d left Amelia at one of the tables in the barroom this morning eating some eggs. She had told me she wasn’t hungry, but I told her if she didn’t eat the food, I would shove it down her throat. I guess she believed me and proceeded to eat.
“Cole, you look like you didn’t sleep a wink. If you need someone—” Mom began when I stepped into the chapel.
I cut her off. I didn’t need anyone. I missed Heather very much. There was no denying that, but everyone around here was blaming Amelia for it when they hadn’t even seen what she looked like. It was fucking wrong, and something needed to be done about it.Bothof them deserved revenge for what the fuck happened.
“I don’t need anyone. I’ve got all of the fucking comfort I need,” I told her.
“You’re finding comfort with the woman who’s to blame for Heather being dead!” Dad roared.
Luke opened his mouth to speak, but I spoke first. “She had nothing to do with Heather’s death!” I roared. “For fuck’s sake, have you even taken two seconds to look at Amelia?! She looks worse than Heather, and Heather’s fucking dead!”
I would force him to look at her if that’s what it took.
I stormed out of the chapel and walked over to Amelia, who was staring at me with wide eyes, obviously hearing the commotion from the chapel. “Come on, babe.”
I grabbed her hand in mine, and together, we walked into the chapel. Dad clenched his jaw when he saw her. “Amelia, who did this to you?” he asked her once he looked over her face, taking in all of the cuts and bruises that covered her skin.
“Who do you think?” she spat at him.
She still felt bad that Heather was dead, and it was affecting her in a different way than it was affecting the rest of us. But I was hoping I’d gotten through to her last night, and I was hoping she no longer felt that she was at fault. She just seemed sad and pissed off all at the same time.
And that was never a good thing with Amelia because she preferred to channel her sadness into anger, which made her a lethal, ticking time bomb.
Dad got up and stormed over to us. Amelia cowered back immediately, her eyes widening in fear. I stood in front of her, pushing her against my back as I glared at my dad.
“Back off,” I snarled at him. “She’s been through enough shit. She doesn’t need you fucking crawling all up her ass. You need to be sensible and calm until she works through what happened to her, do you understand me?”
“How are we to know that she needs to work through shit if we don’t know what the fuck happened?!” he shouted. “For fuck’s sake, Cole, we know who killed Heather. It was the same fucking bastard that raped Amelia the last time she went missing! How is shenotat fucking fault for this?! Because of her careless ways, she brought this shit upon the clubs!”
Amelia shoved me to the side, sending a right hook against my dad’s jaw. Any other time, I would have been insanely proud of her, but we were all too worked up over this entire situation. I had a feeling he was on the verge of snapping her neck.
If he put a finger on her, he’d be damn lucky if I didn’t kill him.
“I get this was my fucking fault,” Amelia spat at him. I guess my talk didn’t get through to her, then. She was just masking the guilt in her eyes, but I could see it now as she spoke out loud about what happened once again. “I don’t need you rubbing it in my fucking face, alright? I’ve learned my lesson from this shit. Seeing her lying naked beside me in the trunk of his car cut me deep enough. How do you think I fucking felt when I was forced to spend every fucking day that I was missing in the same fucking room with her rotting body? How do you think I felt as I watched them touch and rape her dead body over and over, and I couldn’t do anything about it because I was chained to a fucking pole?! How about when that bastard fucked my mouth relentlessly at the same time he told me exactly how he raped and killed her?!”
My dad slapped her. I slammed him against the wall by his neck before he could say a word to her. Amelia took off running out of the room. I would catch up with her later. Right now, I had shit to tend to.
“Are you insane?!” I roared, the muscles bunching in my arms as I tightened my hand around his throat. “Is this what we’ve become, fucking blaming people and hurting women of the club just because we’re caught up in our own fucking misery?!” I punched him in his nose with my free hand, and I heard the bone crunch, blood spurting onto my cut. He moved to shove me away from him, but I tightened my grip on his neck even more, cutting off his airflow. My mother pulled on my shoulders, yelling at me to let him go, but I held tight, unmoving. “This is fucking bullshit! Ever since Amelia turned herself into this person that frightens us all by the way she doesn’t give a fuck, both clubs have turned their backs on her, but yet still want her to do the work their too fucking afraid to do themselves! All of you fucking make her bend over backwards to your fucking will, and even though she’s not one of the fucking girls in this club, but an actual woman who works alongside us, she still does her best to please each of us! Yet, nobody is willing to fucking listen to her, and all you want to do is put your goddamn hands on her!”
“Cole, you’re going to kill him!” Mom yelled in my ear.
