Total pages in book: 60
Estimated words: 56238 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 281(@200wpm)___ 225(@250wpm)___ 187(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 56238 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 281(@200wpm)___ 225(@250wpm)___ 187(@300wpm)
This is one time I wish I didn’t read people easily and well. My own trauma requires me to watch the small things and learn how to see what will come from someone. Reaction after an action meant injury. Preemptive measures are necessary to survive some of the evil people in this world. Because of what I have seen, what I have done, I see her and the situation she has found herself in. Clear as day it’s in her demeanor. She is a woman who has endured living in Hell at the hands of a man. My chest gets painfully tight simply thinking about the past and Josie’s current situation.
The problem is I know all too well the dangers of a woman leaving an abuser. Having that knowledge has made this entire club run different for me. Instead of staying focused on the job I was doing, the times, and the transport, I have constantly checked cameras and wondered if she’s okay. I shouldn’t care. She’s not close to me. But there is this beauty and strength to her that calls to me. I can’t deny the attraction.
I didn’t expect to be gone this long. A few days, one-week tops was the plan. I took a club run, not unusual, but then Rex asked me to come to Catawba for a bit. A week on the road, a week in Catawba, North Carolina, and frankly, all I want to do is climb in my own bed and sleep for a week. When I’m asleep the things from before can’t seep into my day to day. An idle mind is never good for me. A week to sleep off the haunting memories might help me shake the damn skeletons lying in wait in my closet, always threatening to rattle.
That isn’t going to happen, but what the fuck ever.
I will forever live with what I’ve done. The why behind it doesn’t matter, I still did it. And what may be worse is even now, knowing it’s fucked up and will destroy my mind, I would still do it once again. Over and over the reaction never changes. Kill or be killed, right? Except it wasn’t my life on the line. In the end, I couldn’t save her, and I couldn’t save myself either. Twenty years later and I still can’t shake the haunting of my soul.
I don’t bother to open my garage. I’ll leave Pearl, my Harley-Davidson Road Glide in a black pearl paint featuring the Hellions skull on the gas tank, in the driveway tonight. The custom paint job literally has Riffraff painted on each of the hard saddle bags along with a joker skull under it. The pearl shimmer to the paint job gives it this shine depending on which angle it sits. Someone steals this shit, they have a death wish. Ruby is my first bike, where Pearl is my dream bike. Each of them is a different part of me from stripped down to filled out, they are both like an addition of my damn soul.
The neighborhood is quiet like usual and it damn sure feels good to be home. Looking to my watch, I have about a half hour to shower and throw a frozen pizza in the oven for dinner.
My gaze goes to Justice running around yelling, “you can’t catch me” to Josie while she chases behind him. She’s in shorts and a tank top with her ass and tits bouncing. This is a view I can’t complain about, but no need to be getting a chub over the neighbor. She’s beautiful but carries herself in a way that screams she doesn’t see it.
Before I can get off my bike, I notice Josie freeze. She looks to her smart watch before looking around like she’s seen a ghost. She studies the area before rushing to Justice and hurrying him into their house. This puts me on full alert. What has her rattled?
In a matter of seconds from her scurrying inside, I notice a car pull from behind the house on the far side of the cul-de-sac. The one on the other side of my house. From where the little white Ford Fiesta was parked, a person could see directly into her backyard.
This won’t happen again. I’ll make sure of it.
Mentally, I take note of the license plate as they pull away as if they belonged.
The thing is, I know who should be in that house and that car has no business there.
My mind immediately commits all of this to memory, date, time, description, all of it. Getting my shit, I head inside my house. I’m not tired anymore. Dinner is a long gone thought. No, I’m fired up to look into this car and what has Josie rushing inside on a gorgeous Carolina evening.
After grabbing a beer, I can’t get the car off my mind. I planned to shower, but it can wait. Josie’s face, she was pale in fear, it’s stuck in my head. I know the fear of a woman. I also know if I rush over there, she will be more panicked to know someone else saw her problem.