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Chapter Twenty-Five

Adelaide

I looked up at Tristan when he stepped back into the clubhouse. He’d been out most of the day working in the garage, but he hadn’t cuffed me to the bed again, for which I was thankful. And he’d given me free reign of the clubhouse too instead of locking me up in his room.

But I couldn’t stop the itch beneath my skin. I needed a way out. This shit with me and Tristan was toxic as fuck. I couldn’t do this. Not again.

Where the fuck was Joey? Why wasn’t he here? Why hadn’t Tristan told Joey that I was back home? If he had, I knew Joey would’ve been here already, wrapping me up in his arms and doing his best to make me comfortable and help me heal, just like he had before.

My eyes caught River’s from across the room. His lips tilted up the slightest bit in my direction, warming my heart, giving me strength that I hadn’t even known I’d been seeking. I’d always thought that River was attractive, but the way he’d held me yesterday when I had completely fallen apart? My heart skipped a beat in my chest. He was warm and strong. Safe, which was something I hadn’t been in a year.

Zyla handed one of the guys a beer, her lips tilting up a little as Jesup walked in behind Tristan. “Things changed a lot, didn’t they?” I asked her, noting the way Jesup shot her a wink that had her cheeks burning red.

She shrugged as she turned her attention to me. “You were gone for a while, Adelaide,” she reminded me.

I was only supposed to be gone for a couple of hours at most, but Rodney had found me. Everything went fucking downhill from there. The last time I’d been in the clubhouse had been the last time I’d tasted freedom.

I glanced at River again. His blue eyes were already focused on me, and when they caught mine, they softened slightly, understanding and strength for me in their depths. My chest swelled. I hadn’t been looked at like that… well, ever .

River had come to my rescue that night. I didn’t want to call Tristan, and I hadn’t wanted to call Joey.

I wanted someone who never looked at me with judgment. Someone who looked at me without pity.

River jumped out of his truck, his boots making a soft thud on the dirty ground. He had made it to me in record time, just as I knew he would. When he’d given me his number in case of an emergency, he’d told me anytime day or night, call him.

I was so glad that offer still stood.

“Fuck, darlin’,” he breathed as he kneeled next to me on the trash-littered ground, but there was no pity in his eyes. Instead, there was a burning rage in them. “It’s going to hurt like fuck for me to move you, but I need to get you to the hospital.”

“Okay,” I whispered, my voice sounding hoarse to my own ears.

He eased his arms beneath my back and knees, easily lifting me against his chest as his arms flexed around me. He wasn’t wearing his cut, and he had a beanie on his head, hiding his dark hair and mostly concealing his identity from anyone that might see him.

I whined in pain, my breaths shallowing. He brushed his lips to my bloody forehead. “Easy, darlin’,” he soothed. “I’ve got you. You’re not alone. I’m here.”

Tears slid down my cheeks. “I feel like I’m dying,” I choked out as he set me in the passenger seat of his truck.

He gripped my face in his rough, calloused hands, locking those beautiful, blue eyes on mine. “Live for me, Adelaide,” he pleaded. I swallowed thickly at the raw pain and fear for me in his eyes. “Can you do that? Can you live for me?”

Slowly, I nodded. He brushed his thumbs over my cheekbones. “No matter what hell you endure, darlin’, live for me, yeah?” He brushed his lips over mine. I sobbed. Everything hurting so much, but he was doing his best to soothe me. “Just live.”

Troy and Kyle stepped up to the bar, drawing me out of my memory—that sweet, bittersweet memory where River gave me a taste of what it was like to truly be cared about.

Live for me.

I’d fucking lived. I hadn’t done a goddamn thing else, but I fucking lived . I kept my promise to him.

“You here to stick around this time, Adelaide, or are you just going to leave and fuck everyone up again?” Troy demanded to know as Zyla slid him a beer.

I clenched my jaw. He didn’t know shit. “Watch yourself,” I snarled at him.

“She’s not going any fucking where,” Tristan snapped, shooting his cousin a nasty look. I fisted my hands but forced them to relax. I just needed a plan to make Tristan fucking get rid of me for good. I needed to destroy him. I couldn’t keep going round and round in this endless, vicious cycle. Vin was dead. The threat hanging over my head was gone.

I just wanted out. Away. This cycle was heartbreaking, and I couldn’t keep doing it.

I got up from the stool and sighed. “I need my own clothes,” I informed Tristan.

He smirked. “I like you in mine.”

I huffed in aggravation, not enjoying his playfulness. “I still need my own,” I retorted, not playing his game.

We stared at each other for a good minute, and when he realized I wasn’t in the mood for his shit, he blew out a breath. “Give me fifteen minutes to grab a shower, and then, we can go shopping.”

“Shopping?” I asked incredulously. “I just need you to take me to my place to get my things,” I told him. I didn’t want him spending a dime on anything. I had clothes at the apartment Vin had housed me in. Since I was now gone and Vin was dead, I doubted anyone was guarding it, waiting on me to come home.

Tristan shook his head at me. “I’m not taking you anywhere near Vin’s territory, Addy. It’s too fucking dangerous considering I just potentially started a war by shooting him yesterday. So, we’re going shopping.”

“Whatever,” I grumbled, not in the mood to argue with him further. I was still tired, my body still begging for rest.

“In the meantime, ask Zyla if she’s got something you can wear. You two should be about the same size.”

I only closed my eyes as I turned away from him.

I needed out. Needed freedom.

Eyes burned into the side of my head, and when I turned, my eyes locked with River’s again. And we stared at each other until my shoulders drooped a little, some of the tension bleeding from my shoulders.

As it turned out, Zyla and I were the exact same size since I had lost so much weight in the year that I had been gone. I hadn’t been properly fed, only allowed to eat when Vin allowed me to. He’d done everything in his power to tear me down and make me weak.

And he had accomplished it. Vin had ruined me.

I opened the door to Tristan’s room to find him buckling his belt, his shirt tossed on the bed. I swallowed thickly, my grip tightening on the door handle as my eyes trailed over him. I may not have wanted to be in a relationship with Tristan, but I couldn’t deny that he still turned me on. He was well built, his muscles rippling with every move he made.

“You continue to fuck me with those pretty eyes, Addy baby, and we won’t be going shopping for a few more hours,” Tristan huskily warned me.

My eyes snapped up to his, and I subconsciously licked my lips. I wanted this, at least. I wanted a distraction. Something familiar.

And I was familiar with having sex.

With a muttered curse, Tristan walked over to me, his hand sliding into my hair as he tilted my head back, his lips sliding against my own. I moaned softly, my body curving into his as he closed the bedroom door, pushing me against it as he easily lifted me, his lips attacking mine. I wrapped my legs around his hips, my hands clutching at his shoulders as his tongue slid against mine, making my body shudder against his.

This. This was what I needed for at least a little while. There was nothing to sex. It didn’t require much thought, and there didn’t have to be emotions involved. It was nothing more than a transaction of mutual orgasms.

Tristan grabbed the bottom of the shirt I was wearing and tugged it over my head, tossing it to the floor. I whimpered as he ran his rough, calloused hands over my smooth skin.

He was distracting but not distracting enough. My mind kept flitting to other shit, burying me further in my internal torment.

Even though I was no longer in the mood, in very little time, my clothes were on the floor, and Tristan had me on my back on his bed. His hands ran over my body, and he kept teasing me by going so close to where I wanted his fingers the most and then retreating.

I released a frustrated sigh, and finally, he moved over me, his eyes meeting mine. He slowly slid into me, and I sucked in a sharp breath of air, arching my back off of the bed as my walls clutched at him, my body desperate for a release. A release that was all my own, of all my own control, even if my mind was no longer in this.

With a gentleness that Tristan had never really possessed when we were younger, he made love to me, bringing me over the edge over and over again, until exhaustion was weighing me down like a brick.

When Tristan left the room a little while later after I demanded space, surprisingly not fighting me on it, I rolled onto my side, burrowing beneath the blankets.

And I cried.