Stripping Callum (Last Hangman MC Book 6)(55)
“Give him some time. You don’t know what happened to him in the past.”
“True, I just want to help him feel better or at least let out the pain he’s feeling. It’s scary and frustrating to see him that way.”
“I can imagine. He’s always so vocal about everything that having him be quiet must be a weird change.”
“It is. Could you watch Elijah tonight? I want to make sure Callum is okay.”
“Yes, of course. I figured you would anyway.”
“Thank you, you’re a star.”
“No need to thank me. And don’t worry about your stuff being gone. We’ll replace everything. We still have a bunch of stuff from when the kids were younger. I’m sure we’ll find things for Elijah in them.”
“You’re the best.”
“I know.” She chuckles. “Go take care of your man and make sure he’s okay. We’ve got Elijah.”
“Thank you again.”
“You’re welcome, sweetheart. Have a good night,” she says before hanging up.
Placing my phone on the coffee table, I get up and stretch. All this silence is making me nervous, and I need to do something. I can’t stand the silence anymore. It’s too quiet. I look around the living room at the very few pictures he has displayed and they are all the girls from the MC. I’m sure they are the ones who put them there.
However, I don’t see any pictures of Callum with anyone. No family, no friends. For some reason, I find it unsettling. Everybody has pictures or at least one with their family. I don’t have much time to ponder on that as my phone pings from the coffee table.
Picking it up, I open the message and see it’s from Callum.
Callum: Come to the last room to your left when you come up the stairs.
This is weird. If anyone would tell me this, I’d think they are about to prank me, but considering the mood Callum has been in today, I doubt he’s about to do that. Or he could be wanting to kill me for some unknown reason. That sounds very psychopath-ish to ask for such a thing, but I do as he says.
I have no idea what to expect. He never gave me any indication that he was hiding a double life or a bad secret that could be hidden in the room, and my mind is going wild after what happened tonight.
Knocking on the door, I patiently wait for Callum to tell me to come in. I don’t want to just barge in.
“Come in, babe,” he says, sounding sad. I open the door and take it in. I am shocked beyond belief at what I’m seeing. It’s a kid’s room. I don’t know what to make of this. The room is in pristine condition as if a kid is living in it, but Callum has never mentioned a kid and I’ve never seen him with one.
What first comes to mind is that it’s a kid’s room for whenever he could be babysitting one of his brothers’ kids, but he doesn’t seem to be the type of guy to babysit.
He’s sitting on the bed, holding a picture in his left hand, brushing his fingers over it. Looking up at me, he holds his right hand out to me. I don’t make him wait and join him.
Taking his hand, I sit down next to him. For what seems like forever, he stays quiet.
“His name was Billy,” he says on a shuddering breath.
Callum
Emptiness.
That’s how I feel. I never thought I’d ever feel like the day they were ripped away from me. This is even worse. Nobody died, but Bella could have, and I could have never forgiven myself if that had happened.
Everything is a blur after her car blew up. I vaguely remember talking to the cops, coming back here and talking to more cops, but other than that, nothing. I feel myself shutting off, and I don’t like it. I don’t want to do this to Bella. She doesn’t deserve it. She deserves to know, but f*ck it if it’s not hard to open up about something that changed my life forever.
With what happened earlier and this past week, I don’t want to throw more things at her for her to hate me because I hid stuff from her, too.
It’s time for me to let go of the past and remember the good moments with Alina and Billy, but it’s so hard. How can someone recover from that? I thought it had made me angry for years, that I couldn’t feel anything anymore. Sadly, it’s not true. I’d rather not feel a thing than feel like my world is crumbling down around me.
If it’s not someone from Bella’s past, it means it’s my own past coming back to haunt me and put me through misery again. Who could hate me so much to want to kill the people I love? I’m not even sure who killed Alina and Billy. For the longest time, I thought it was her ex but what would it have to do with Bella and Elijah? Unless he’s really f*cked up and just wants me to pay for her breaking up with him, but then he would have targeted all the women I had sex with more than once.
Leaving Bella in the living room, I go into Billy’s old room. It’s the only room I’ve kept the same since it happened. I donated most of Alina’s stuff, but I couldn’t bring myself to get rid of Billy’s. I don’t know what that says about me. That I’m not capable of love? That I don’t care about women? Or maybe that I loved her so much that it was hard to have daily reminders of her? I don’t know. All I know is that Billy’s room is in pristine condition as if I just cleaned it while he’s at school. I know he’ll never come back, and holding onto his stuff is just causing me more heartache than anything else.