Page 101 of Accepting Fate
"Alright. So, I want to finish what we were talking about last night but I wanna go for a ride first.”
Logan lights up. "Sounds good to me. Whatever you want to do today, I’m your girl.”
Leaning over, I press a kiss to her lips.
My girl has become obsessed with going for rides. Ever since the first time we went out and made it back safe, anytime it’s nice out, we go. It’s been almost every off day she has now that it’s summer.
"Wait. Finish what we were talking about last night? There’s more to the story?” Logan asks.
"Not much but I don’t want to hide anything from you anymore. You’re mine and I want you to know everything.”
I can tell she’s nervous. "Whatever you want to tell me, Bear, I promise nothing will change the way I feel about you.”
I fucking hope so, Angel.
Logan treks down the stairs, fresh from our shower. We spent the last five hours on the bike in the hot sun and needed to cool off. As soon as we got home, I threw her over my shoulder and ate her like a fucking snack.
"Do you wanna eat outside or inside?” I ask as I place the finishing touches on our dinner.
She sneaks up to me and winds her arms around my middle. Standing on her toes she rests her chin on my shoulder. "Outside. Want me to start a fire?”
"Yeah. I’ll meet you out there.”
When I get outside, Logan is sitting in a chair in front of the fire pit.
I set the plate on her lap and hand her a glass of wine. She smiles up at me. "Thanks, Bear.”
I drop a quick kiss to her lips. "Always, Angel.”
We eat our dinner silently. When we are both finished, Logan brings both of our plates in and comes back out with refills of our drinks.
Her ass barely hits the seat before words fly out her mouth. "I don’t want to push you, but can you please tell me what you were talking about earlier? It’s making me a little anxious having to wait.”
Nodding, I take a sip of my beer and scoot her chair closer to mine. Choosing to jump straight into it, I say, "You know I go on trips with my brothers, and I know you have probably picked up on the fact that we do the rescues pretty frequently.”
"Yeahhh. But I don’t have any clue why or how,” she says as she turns her chair, propping her legs on the arm.
Settling further into my chair, I rest my free hand on her legs. "We call them missions. It started a few weeks after Eliza died. I was trying to figure out how to deal with her being gone but I couldn’t let go of blaming the ex. So, I asked Landon to find him, and he did. Everyone wanted revenge but Noah and I wanted it the most.
"Mom couldn’t get him arrested and I was pissed, so I decided I was going to kill him. I’m not proud of it but the asshole should have died and not her.
"So, Landon found him, and I knew what I was going to do. I convinced my brothers that killing him would be taking one more piece of shit off the street and another girl wouldn’t fall victim. Mom sometimes told us about the most tame cases she worked on. But still, all of us had a connection to take an abuser off the street. Wes was the first one on board and I think he does all of this as an outlet for his anger for what happened to Mom. He may not say much but he’s very protective of the ones he loves. Noah was still young but was just as messed up as I was about Eliza. Landon was harder to convince since he was the one that had to use his job to take down someone, even though the fucker deserved whatever we were going to give him. I’ll spare you the details but long story short we tortured him for days then killed him, then Noah dumped his body in the ocean.”
Logan’s face doesn’t show much, and I wish it did. "Wow. I mean he deserved it but…wow.”’
"Yeah. But I don’t regret it for a single fucking second. We never told anyone, but Mom and Dad knew. She finally got enough evidence to put him in prison and when the cops went to his house, they found a suicide note. Mom told us and we should have reacted more to throw her off, but I didn’t care. So, we didn’t bother hiding the rest from them. Most of the families we help don’t have the funds to pay us. The exchange of money was never on the table until a victim's father insisted we be compensated for bringing his daughter home alive. We didn’t feel right pocketing all of the money, so we keep a small portion and the rest goes into helping the victims. Sorry, I just wanted to tell you that since I knew you were probably curious how we afford everything, and I don’t want any secrets between us.
“Anyways, Wes was on board under one condition. He wanted to build a tunnel under The Hideout that led to a room where we could drag out torture and not be caught. We all thought it was too much, but he was persistent. So, we all pitched in and built a soundproof concrete room with jail cells and various mechanisms for torture and called it The Playhouse.”
I pause to give her a second to catch up. She’s staring at me, and her face is a little pale. I squeeze her legs. "Sorry, Angel. I’m trying to be as vague as possible but tell you everything.”
She runs her fingers through her hair. "No. I’m fine. It’s just a lot.”
Fuck. This is what I was worried about. I’m scaring her. I can’t fucking lose her.
"Angel. Please hear me out. I promise we never do anything to innocent people. These are bad fucking people. I know you’re scared but please give me a chance to explain.”
Her brows pinch together, "A chance? Bear, I'm letting you explain. It’s a lot to process but I already told you nothing you tell me would change the way I feel about you.”