Ruthless Hold (Back Down Devil MC #9)(27)

“Yeah.”

Eden listened to Trev. He gently touched her waist and pulled her to the ground. They then sat next to each other, Trev turned toward her, hand on her leg.

“Keep breathing,” he said. “Then look at me and talk to me.”

Eden got herself to calm and she looked at Trev. She focused on his features. His sexy features.

“I don’t like this place,” she whispered. “At all.”

“I can see that. You know this is what happens in life, right?”

“I know that, Trev. I haven’t been to a cemetery since my adoptive parents…”

“Ah, f*ck,” Trev said. He slipped an arm around her and hugged her. “I should have known. I already told you, I’ve seen enough that it’s all normal to me.”

“Not to me,” Eden said. “Okay?”

“Okay,” Trev said. “But you have to do this. You have to go see him. Look at his grave. Understand what’s happened. Learn to accept it. So we can start to move forward with all this shit, Eden. It’s only going to get worse from here. I’m trying to do this for you right now because calls are answered and action takes place.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means plenty,” Trev said. “None of it you need to know about right now. Now take my hand and let’s go.”

Trev rose up first. He offered his hand and Eden took it. He pulled her to her feet. She started to shiver again at the sight of all the gravestones again. Trev kept to his word, holding her hand tight. He interlocked his fingers to hers, almost romantic, and he started to walk.

Eden felt a warm calm run through her body. That was what Trev’s presence and touch did to her. Nobody had ever made her feel like that before.

When Trev stopped, he pointed to a grave.

The first thing Eden noticed was how blended in it was. It just reminded her that she had purposely waited almost a year to come to Frelen. Her eyes filled with tears and she put her head to Trev’s hard chest.

“Say something,” she whispered.

“Griffin, brother,” Trev said. “This is your baby girl. Your beautiful daughter, Eden. She came to the MC looking for you. I’m sure you know more about this than we all do. Hell, for all I know, you crazy son of a bitch, you set this in motion. Hell, maybe even after your death. You’re that kind of wild, right?”

There was silence and Trev put his arm around Eden and squeezed her.

“Keep going,” Eden whispered.

“We’re going to take care of her,” Trev said. “No bullshit, Griffin. I promise you that, brother. It’s the least I could do for you. I’ll make sure she doesn’t get hurt. I’ll make sure she understands who you were. She knows you died wearing your leather cut. Maybe that doesn’t mean anything to her yet but someday it will.”

Eden stood and wiped tears from her eyes. She broke away from Trev and stepped forward. She stared at the stone and couldn’t find any words. Maybe there were no words because all her words were going to end up as questions that her father could never answer. The bullet that stole his life stole his voice and stole all of Eden’s answers.

She stood for what felt like an hour.

“This one time,” Trev said, “I had this beef with a guy, okay? He sort of screwed me with some motorcycle parts. I paid him and he kept giving me the runaround on things. I figured lesson learned. Shit happens all the time like that to people, you know? Serves me right for being stupid.”

Eden looked back and saw Trev leaning against a headstone, arms crossed.

“Isn’t it rude to lean against someone else’s stone?” Eden asked.

Trev patted the stone. “Me and Ashburne’s are solid on this, beautiful.”

“Oh.”

“So one night I go out for a few drinks,” Trev said. “Griffin tailed me. He knew I was pissed off. He knew I was looking to find a reason to fight someone. Always trying to save my ass. I get to this dive bar and the f*cking guy who screwed me is sitting there. Two pretty women around him and he’s buying shots. When he saw me, he nodded like nothing was wrong. He f*cked with me and I wanted to f*ck with him. The thing was, I had gotten into a little bit of trouble and I had the PD on me. They were waiting for me to f*ck up. They wanted to put me away and I was seconds away from having it happen. The guy walked over to me and put a hand out to shake my hand and quickly went on the defensive about the parts. I asked him what the f*ck he was trying to prove. He laughed at me and wanted to know what I was going to do. He put his finger to my chest and said that a bunch of dirty leather guys weren’t going to rattle his chains. The second he said it I felt my hand go back. Then Griffin was there. Standing next to me. Before I could do anything stupid, Griffin knocked the guy out. One punch. The entire bar went silent. The guy was out, on the floor, arms out. Griffin knew how much I was out so he crouched down and dug through the guy’s pocket and got me twice what I had paid.”

Trev started to laugh. He let out a long breath and shook his head. He looked away, blinking fast.

“So I bought a round for everyone at the bar, for the disturbance. The bartender had two of his workers drag that * out. I never saw him again. And that was Griffin.” Trev looked at Eden. His face like stone again. “That was your father. He always looked after me when we ran outlaw together. When he patched back into Back Down Devil, down here in Frelen, it was like I lost a father. I get it. It was good to see him again years later but it wasn’t the same. There was a lot of shit he had to keep to himself, and so did I. But that was Griffin. He was smart as hell. Always managed the finances great. Always had business ideas. And at the same time, he’d drop the pencil while calculating some kind of percentage of something and grab his gun, ready to fight for his club and for his brothers.”