I dragged a hand over my face. “When Titan died, everyone said it was a rival club. Retaliation. Business as usual in the MC world. And I believed it because why wouldn’t I? Christina was already gone. She’d been gone ten years by then. So I never connected his death to her running. Not until last year when I found out Steele and Stone were actually responsible. And even then, it didn’t involve her. She’d already disappeared with Grace a decade earlier, or so I thought. So this doesn’t make sense. She wasn’t supposed to be there. She couldn’t have—” I stopped. Stared at the journal. “She wasn’t there.”
“But she was there,” Trudy said quietly.
“Yeah.” The word came out bitter. “When Titan told me she took off, she’d only moved to the next town. She had nothing inher name, no way to trace her, no way to find her. Because the fucking club still had her. Titan fucking hid her from me.”
Trudy’s jaw tightened. “Who else knew?”
“I don’t know.” That was the worst part. “Steele and Stone, obviously. But who else? Did the whole club know? Did they all sit around laughing at me while I tried to piece together where they went? Did they?—”
“Stop.” Trudy’s voice cut through the spiral. “You don’t know who knew. You’re guessing.”
I stared at the journal, my hands shaking. “Titan told me she ran. He lied and said she took Grace and disappeared. That she was gone. And I believed him. I spent years looking for her, years wondering where she went, why she left me. And the whole time—” My voice cracked. “The whole time she was still in Arkansas. With him. She was there, being used by the man I fucking trusted to protect my family.”
The words hung in the air between us, heavy and impossible.
“She was there when I was searching,” I continued, my voice rough. “She was there when I gave up. She was there the entire fucking time, and nobody told me. They all lied to me about when she left, about where she was. They let me believe she was gone when she was still...” I couldn’t finish the sentence.
Trudy stepped closer. “She was protecting Grace.”
“I know!” The rage was back, sharper now. “I know that’s what she was doing. I know she was desperate. I know she made impossible choices. But this...” I gestured at the journal. “This wasn’t just about protection. This was about survival. And she did it alone. She lived with this alone. She was there for a decade and never reached out. Never told me the truth. Never gave me a chance to help her or understand or—” I stopped, my chest heaving. “And now she’s dead and I can’t ask her why she thought she had to become this. Why she thought she had to do it alone.”
Trudy didn’t flinch. She just stood there, watching me with those sharp eyes that saw too much.
“You’re angry,” she said.
“Of course I’m fucking angry.”
“You’re also hurt.”
That stopped me cold.
She stepped closer, her voice softening. “You’re hurt because you loved her, and she didn’t trust you enough to tell you the truth.”
I wanted to deny it. Wanted to say it wasn’t about trust; it was about the lies, the deception, the years of believing something that wasn’t real.
But she was right.
Christina hadn’t trusted me. Not with this. Not with the worst thing she’d ever done. She’d carried it alone, written it down in a journal she knew I’d only read after she was gone, and left me to deal with the fallout.
“I would’ve understood,” I said, and my voice cracked on the words. “If she’d told me, if she’d come to me and said she needed help, that she needed out, that Titan wouldn’t let her go, I would’ve fucking helped her. I would’ve found another way.”
“Would you have?” Trudy asked gently.
I opened my mouth to say yes. Of course yes. But the word stuck in my throat.
Christ. Would I have?
She let them use her; she let them fuck her to keep Grace safe. To survive. And if she’d come to me and told me that? Told me what she was willing to do?
I don’t know if I could’ve handled it.
That was the fucking truth I didn’t want to admit.
Back then, I was possessive as hell. Just like I was now. The thought of another man’s hands on her made my blood boil even now, even knowing she was gone, even knowing it was survival.So what would I have done then? When I was younger, angrier, more convinced I could fix everything with my fists and my will?
Would I have understood? Or would I have lost my mind?
Would I have understood what she had to do? Or would I have blamed her for using her body instead of coming to me first?
