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I’d been right. And I’d been wrong.
Gifts inside a curse…
With a plan to gain Onus’s trust, while protecting an undercover agent who had made her way into the club, I made Tabitha, ‘Tabi’, my Old Lady. The woman—who was trying to save children, too—found the courage to accept my offer. It was hard for her to have sex with a sixteen-year-old, but I wasn’t an ordinary teenager. That was something anyone around me sensed and something Onus knew as fact. Tabi saw glimpses of my gifts when finding me, on occasion, in the middle of the night, having a nightmare while drawing an eagle on my black bedroom walls and crying out for Rya. Tabi promised that if anything ever happened to me, she would protect Rya.
Together, Tabi, Roamer, Chubs, and I started making headway in finding out well-hidden club secrets within the Titans when it came to the human trafficking trade. With more divine intervention, Chubs even rescued a young girl. A new twist of fate, and one glance into her golden eyes, had me realize she was related to Rya.
Yes, while we were trying to save children, I learned Rya had been sold to the Stannon’s. Not only had Mrs. Stannon been killed when Rya was a little girl, but she had been murdered by her husband because she discovered the horrendous acts he was doing to Rya.
Now, so many years later, Rya’s brother, Bert, found this out. Like Mrs. Stannon, he never got to tell, as his body was found by Rya, floating facedown in a motel pool. That’s how I found out Bert had been working with agents. Tabitha’s team.
The betrayal stung, but Rya’s pain cut much deeper. Following a glowing eagle in the night, I rushed my Harley back to my everlasting light and had my very first kill… Rya’s adoptive father.
He wasn’t the only kill of that dark night. With the help of the clubs—who would always have my back—and a few Titans including Weatherman, so loyal to me for reasons I didn’t know, I finally took a stand against Onus. Piercer was killed in the fight, and Onus was held prisoner in an undisclosed location by the Redemption Ryders. They were trying to give me time to sort out my mess in Wilmington and to lay Rya’s valiant brother to rest.
Where is the ‘gift’ in Rya’s suffering?
That haunting thought kept torturing me as I sat in her childhood home. It was late in the evening and very quiet. Rya was sleeping safely in her bed behind me as I lay in her hammock. It hung in front of the bedroom window that she used to stare out of so she could see the rooftop of the home that housed a certain little boy. She prayed for that little boy. She always prayed for Thunder.
Thunder…
I was no longer the little boy she kept alive with her mesmerizing light and prayers. I had grown into a young man who was determined to protect her at any cost. Rya and I weren’t just young people in love; we were soulmates on a level I was still trying to comprehend. And she was living proof of a treacherous, deadly ring of illegal actions. I say living because the group of men Mr. Stannon had hired to kill Bert, the Hell Furies MC, had come to do the same to me and Rya the night I stood up to Onus.
Coincidence? Fuck no.
The men were aware of things about Rya, like her having seizures, something I knew nothing about.
My heart racing in fear, I startled when my burner phone vibrated in my lap. The text read:
How is she?
Throughout my years, I had faced so many dangerous challenges and survived them all. But with Rya’s life on the line? I was terrified. I was doubting I could keep her safe.
I replied with one word that encompassed much.
Lost
I wasn’t speaking of only her broken heart. I was admitting to my petrified one.
Diesel was a father in the beginning stages of learning his son. Even though he wanted to jump in and take over, he was respecting my decisions.
Not alone, Pup
When I say respecting my decisions, that’s not to say I wasn’t under heavy guard. I was certain there were gun-toting Ryders protecting the extensive property that once belonged to Rya’s father.
Keep holding her tight
Even though Diesel couldn’t see me, I nodded. I knew Ryders had reported Rya’s cries—her pitiful screams—while standing on the land where her ‘daddy’ had hurt her.
Your love for her is strong
After Rya tired from her gut-wrenching screams in a field of yellow flowers, she would run to me, jump in my arms, and cry herself back to sleep.
In her bedroom, rubbing the scar Onus caused on my palm, I texted back:
I think this place may be too much
for her
