Thoughts of The Horror House shot into my head, but I brushed them off. Casting my mind back to Nix’s admission that Storm was collecting him from work. My sixth sense that she was close had gone off like a Geiger counter.
As I left the fire station, I instantly recognized the vanity plate on Storm’s white Audi RS Q8; nice. How could you not? Sitting above the Ocean State wording was her entire name, STORM. Her father bought it for her first car, a white Range Rover Sport, for her sweet sixteenth. I remembered how proud she was when she got her license and how she loved to tell everyone how much the tires cost. A thrill rolled through me; we’d done some dirty things in that car. I wondered what things she had gotten up to in that Audi, turning the thrill into something darker.
The fact that she had parked so inconsiderately by taking up two whole spaces had made me chuckle—still the same old selfish Storm: a spoiled brat with a sense of entitlement as big as her goddamned mouth.
As usual, curiosity had gotten the better of me, and I pulled my bike up alongside to sneak a peek before I met with her on Monday.
When she’d turned to face me through the glass, my heart had almost stopped in my chest. At twenty-four, she had flourished with maturity and was even more beautiful than the teenager I once knew.
Her gray eyes held no trace of recognition, just a determination to see beneath my visor: those delicate facial features still possessing that same iron will. Her ink-blacklocks glowed with health and fell over her shoulders like a dark cloak. As I had scanned her model-like looks, I thought about the days when I used to nail her from behind with my hand wrapped around that hair. The way she would turn her head and watch me over one shoulder, her face flushed from passion.
The smile from beneath my helmet had widened at Storm’s usual snooty body language, the stubborn tilt of her chin, and herwhat the fuck are you looking atexpression.
A biker pulling up beside her car would be of no interest to Newport’s Queen fucking Bee. A faceless, leather-wearing stranger on a motorcycle would be too rough and unpredictable: a reckless, thrill-seeking individual who lived on the edge of danger. Even though we both knew that’s exactly what Storm craved behind her quilted closed doors.
Enter Reed.
I was as fucked up and as dangerous as they came, though I hid it well. I had once been viewed as the calmest of the Sawyer brothers. Yeah, well, not anymore.
Recent events that had blown up on the news were forcing me to face a period of my past I had buried: ten months of my life spent in limbo before I found Ma.
Micha and I had been fostered together previously for a few years, but then we got separated. Although ten months sounded like a short period of time. For me, it was like a fucking lifetime. Luckily, Micah had fared much better.
When I heard about what had happened in the house I had been temporarily forced to stay in, calm was a distant memory. In its place was a force of nature that wanted to burn everyone responsible for my pain to the ground, including the Storm Summers of this world. Or so I had thought, but that other promise that I made to myself came thundering back as soon as I saw her.
I had vowed that one day I would love Storm Summers the way she deserved to be loved; out in the open, in front of the world. That’s partly the reason I left. As a bum kid, I knew I wasn’t worthy of her. I needed to make something of myself, and I had. So why had I left it so long to come back?
Because all the while you were screwing each other, she was engaged to another guy. I knew it wasn’t straightforward and that there was more to it. Phoenix explained that Storm had asked for time to carve out a career for herself before becoming some stuck-up prick’s trophy wife. I found it interesting that she had now achieved her goal, and there were still no wedding bells. The slight hope that she was waiting for me was always at the back of my mind.
Well, sweetheart. The waiting is over.
Annoyance rippled through me. She was now up there with those who had done me wrong, but could I really punish her along with the others? A girl who had once so completely held my heart in her hand?
Yes, because Storm carved those emotional scars into your chest. Ones that may never heal.
As I had sat on my bike, the urge to lift my visor and look her directly in the eye had powered through me like the roar of the engine between my legs (no pun intended).
When I had watched her through the window, I experienced a kick at the thought of justice: having a chance to balance the scales. Get my own back!
But I knew I couldn’t do it. Those feelings I had buried deep, covered with my career in the NFL, were still there, fighting their way to the surface. As was my disgust with myself after learning what had happened at The Horror House (as the press had labeled it). That place I had spoken about, where I had been stuck for ten long months: a shithole full of pain and suffering that I had walked away from and never looked back. A place I had left others like me, and yet I had never spoken out.
Over the last two months, since the story blew up in the media, I’d rationalized my silence. I was only eight years old when I escaped. I’d been too terrified to speak out, even to Ma years later. Nope, I’d buried that shit, and now it was coming back to haunt me, literally.
Hudson and Storm were the only people who knew some of the details of what had happened to me under the care of the Palmers. But neither of them wouldconnect what happened to me with the house that was now on the news. Yes, I was famous now, but the only shit the press knew about my childhood was what I told them through my PR team.
The case of Louise and David Palmer was due to go to trial in the next few weeks. I wasn’t sure of all the details yet, but from what I’d read, the lawsuit involved the abuse of children the couple had fostered over the lasttwo decades.
The ages of their victims ranged from two years old to fifteen. It was reported on the news that it was believed that one of the children escaped through an open window and managed to flag down a police car. Brave fucking kid: braver than I had been. After seeing photographs on a phone the girl had stolen, the authorities then raided the residence and discovered disturbing evidence. Given the number of kids involved and the degree of abuse that occurred over those years, the story had garnered significant national attention, and now the Palmers were going to court.
I hadn’t confided in anyone that I had been one of those victims. A lucky one who had escaped and found a new life, but the urge to do so was strong. Keeping shit inside rotted your bones, I knew that now.
Storm. I had to see her, tell her the whole truth. She’d always accused me of hiding something. Well, I was done doing that.
She was still my beautiful monster, killing me from all angles. Just one glimpse into the depths of her eyes, and she was already reeling me back in. I wondered if she’d consider me worthy enough for her now that I was successful.
Storm's resilience and strength had been the only things that had kept my head above water for years.
Fuck!
