Crash (Brazen Bulls MC #1)(22)

Willa could feel herself getting in the weeds. If she detailed every Jesse moment of the years between that day and this one, she’d still be talking when the sun rose. She drained her beer. When she moved to set the empty bottle back, Rad took it and did it for her. His body leaned over her legs, and she felt the pressure on her sore knee, but it didn’t hurt. The stony firmness of his belly had distracted her from anything like pain.

“Okay, I need to sum this up. That day, he left quietly. But after that, he’d show up in weird places. Never at my dorm again, but he’d be on the quad, or at the bowling alley, or sitting in a bar. He seemed to pop up places I was at—in Austin, which is more than three hundred miles from home. He’d just stand there, or sit there, and stare. The first couple of times, I tried to go up to him, but he’d turn and leave before I got there. After that, I tried to ignore him.”

“He was stalkin’ you. Ignorin’ somebody like that won’t make him stop.”

“I know, but he didn’t seem to be doing anything but staring, and I was still afraid of…I don’t even know. Afraid I was being paranoid, or that I deserved it for breaking his heart, or I don’t know. Just afraid. God, I f*cking hate how weak I was.”

A fresh bout of self-loathing and relived fear wrapped around the memories taking center stage in Willa’s head. The feeling tightened her throat, and she closed her eyes, trying to overcome the clutching horror and shame. Rad sat quietly. When she opened her eyes, the first thing she saw was him, staring at her. Inscrutably.

She went on with her story. The really hard parts were on deck.

“I didn’t go home after graduation. I got a job at the medical center, working in the ER. I knew already that I wanted to work in Labor & Delivery, but I took the job I was offered in Austin. I wanted to stay far away from home.

“ER is hard duty. You see a lot of sad people there. A lot. Even the people who come with minor injuries or illnesses are usually there because they don’t have any other way to get care. You see a lot of violence in the ER, too. The aftermath, every day, and some days you get caught in the middle of it. Sometimes helping moms have babies is sad, too, real sad, but mostly, I’m with people on one of the best days of their life. Lots of people have their worst day in the ER. I had my worst days there.”

“He hurt you there?” Rad’s hand’s had stopped moving on her legs. Now they tightened around her shin.

“No. He put me there. I had a little apartment not far from work. When I got home one night after second shift, he was standing in the shadows at the end of the hall. I didn’t see him until he charged up as I opened the door. He forced himself in. He beat me up and raped me. Then he left. He never said a word to me. Rad—you’re hurting me.”

At once, Rad released his hands, which had become vises around her lower leg. “Sorry, baby.” Rather than meet her eyes, he turned and fixed on her door. “That’s why the locks.”

She’d noticed that he’d called her ‘baby’ instead of ‘darlin’,’ and she wondered if that was significant.

“Yeah. Once something like that’s happened in your own home, it’s hard to feel safe anywhere. I mean, I know it’s dumb. The door was open because I was trying to go into my apartment. That’s how he got in. Locks wouldn’t have helped me. But these make me feel better. Ollie is my real security. He’s trained to attack anyone who threatens me.”

Willa looked over her shoulder at her baby boy, who was lying on his bed near the fireplace. He’d heard his name and had lifted his head. She dropped her hand to the floor, and he came over and put his nose in it, then lay down where she could reach him.

Rad grinned at her dog. “I’ve seen his look. You’re right—if he’s around, you’re safe. And now I’m around, too.”

She smiled at that, though she was conflicted about what his offer might mean. “Jesse’s a biker, too, you know.”

“What?”

“Yeah. While I was in Austin. He joined up with an MC in Lubbock. The Dirty Rats.”

Rad made a face like he’d smelled something rotten. “That’s a shit club. Rats are thugs. No standards for members but violence. The Lubbock charter’s full of white-pride rednecks.”

Willa was perfectly aware. The last time she’d seen Jesse, he’d had a swastika inked on the back of his hand. Before, he’d been the kind of careless racist that was typical of people growing up in a tiny town and never meeting anybody different from them. But the Rats had made him something else. And prison. Prison had changed him, too.

“You report what he did to you?”

“Yeah. He pled to burglary and did less than two years. He didn’t do time for beating or raping me. Just pushing his way into my apartment.”

Rad laughed at that, but instead of mirth, Willa heard menace in it. “Fuckin’ law. When’d this happen?”

“1987.”

His eyebrow went up in surprise. “Eight years ago. And you’re still scared?”

No, she was not scared. He was wrong about that. She was ready; it was different. “It’s not the only thing he did. He found me again in Dallas five years ago and almost killed me that time. He did five years for assault with intent.”

“Five years, five years ago. That means…”