“Oh my God, he’s been tracking her? Jesus, I had no idea. That’s not an excuse. I take responsibility for it. I’m sorry, Bear. I truly am. So, what’s it to be? Shot or something else?” he asked as he stood up shakily.
“We’re not going to kill you. We’re just kicking you out of the club. We don’t want you making contact with anyone associated with here, that includes the other prospects. I hope you learned your lesson, not to believe what other people tell you, no matter if they’re a buddy or not. You can get other people hurt or even killed,” Tank told him.
“Really, you’re not killing me?” He looked stunned. When we nodded, he sagged in relief. “I swear I won’t ever do anything like this again. If I could go back and make this right, I would. Please, Bear, tell Ilara how sorry I am. I know I hurt her and I feel like shit for it. I was a dumbass.”
“I’ll tell her, but what you did crushed her. She told everyone something very personal to her. I know she’s worried what people will think of her. I need to make sure she knows that no one is going to treat her differently.” He hung his head and nodded.
“We’ll give you until tomorrow morning to get your stuff together then you’ll be escorted off the premises. We hate that it came to this, Tate,” Bull told him.
“I deserve it and it’s better than I expected. I’m sorry I let you all down.” He nodded then walked off toward his room. When he was gone, Bull looked at Payne.
“I don’t think he’ll do anything, but have a watch put on him tonight. In the morning, make sure he turns in any keys or remotes to the compound. We’ll change passcodes after he’s gone.”
“No problem, Pres,” Payne assured him.
“I’ll talk to you later,” I told the guys. They all waved as I hurried out the door. I’d been gone longer than I wanted. I needed to see if Ilara was doing okay or not. When I came through the front door, Jocelyn was sitting in the living room. She had Caeden and Corinne in their double stroller. They were asleep. She got up and came over to me.
“I tried to talk to her, but she was too upset. She said she wanted to be alone. I stayed down here in case she needed anything. I’ve heard some movement, but that’s it. I tried to get her to eat, but she said she wasn’t hungry,” she whispered. I gave her a hug.
“Thank you for trying. Do you need me to help you get the kids back to the house?”
“Just help me lift the stroller down the front steps and we’re good.”
She grabbed the kids and pushed them out to the porch. I saw Bull coming toward us. By the time I carried the stroller down to the ground, he was there. We shook hands, and he walked off with his arm around his wife. I hurried back inside and up to the bedroom. I softly knocked then turned the knob. When the door opened, my heart dropped.
Ilara had her bags out and they were almost full of her stuff. I practically ran over to her. “No, Jesus Christ, you’re not leaving, Beloved,” I cried out. She swung around in surprise. I guess she hadn’t heard me knock. Her face was pale as hell and her eyes red from crying. She started to sob.
“I can’t be here. I can’t. They now know what happened. They’ll treat me differently. I know they will. I’m not going to be able to stand it, Donovan. I wish I could stay.” She sobbed as I jerked her to me. She burrowed her face into my chest.
I took her to the bed and sat down, with her on my lap. “I want to ask you something. Have any of the guys treated you differently this whole week you’ve been here?” She shook her head no. “They already knew, Ilara. I told them last Saturday. I had to, so they would know what we were facing here. I made them swear not to tell their wives, which they promised. You’re not the first woman we’ve ever had in our clubs who’s been raped, baby. It’s fucking terrible, but we know it happens. It’s not your fault. No one believes it is.”
She pulled away from me. “You told them! How could you?” she screamed at me. She tried to get up, but I wouldn’t let her.
“Because they needed to realize you might have triggers. Because they knew about the guys in the alley. And because I was going to have to go after Todd and kill him, eventually. To do that, I needed their backing and help. They were outraged, babe, and so fucking proud of you for leaving and keeping Hope. One of the old ladies in Dublin Falls, Brielle, her daughter is a result of rape too. Another woman had been raped by her husband and her youngest child with him was the result of that. We have another one, Wren, who was taken and raped.”
She stared at me in shock and disbelief. “There are really three women in Dublin Falls who this happened to?”
“Yep. If you want, I can call and you can talk to them. Wren is with Ghost, Brielle is with Ranger, and Ashley is with Devil Dog.” I took out my phone, but she halted me.
“Don’t call them tonight, but it does help to know there are others. It has made me feel so damn dirty and ashamed. I thought people would judge me. The fact you didn’t, shocked me. I’ve told a few people, and they treated me differently once they knew.”
“Then those people were idiots. The guys are worried to death about you. We had a meeting and Tate is gone. He’s out of here by morning. He did want me to tell you he was sorry, and he hates that he did this to you. He believed his buddy.”
“What do you mean, he’s gone?”
“He’s out of the Warriors. He’s no longer a prospect, and he’s not going to ever be patched in as one. He’s not welcome around us either.”
“No! Bear, you can’t do that. He made a mistake. It hurt, but to do such a drastic thing, that’s not right,” she pleaded. I looked at her in shock.
“Baby, I wanted to fucking kill him. He’s getting off easy. He even said he expected us to kill him. He put you at risk. A greater risk than he knew, which brings me to the next thing. I hate to add to your stress, but you need to know. You won’t be allowed to leave the compound on your own anymore.”
“Why? Are you afraid of Tate doing something?”
“No, I’m afraid of Todd. When Tate spoke to his friend, his friend went to Todd and asked him about you. That means he knows where you are.” She gasped. “However, he would have eventually anyway. Outlaw dug into him. He’s been off the deep end for over a year. He’s been moving from place to place, hitting the towns and states you went to, Ilara. If you worked where he could find you, he’s been there. It would only have been a matter of time before he tracked you here.”
“Oh my God, what can we do?” she cried out in fear.
“We wait and we prepare. When the time is right, we find him and I kill him. He’ll disappear to never be found or seen again.”
She stared at me in shock. I waited to see what she’d say. After a couple of minutes, I was getting worried. She finally spoke. “You’d kill him for me?”
“Hell yes! He’s a scum not worthy of life for what he did. After you left, another woman accused him of rape. He had another friend who swore he was with him. How he gets them to do it, I don’t know, but enough is enough. God knows how many women he’s done this to. He needs to die. Prison won’t rehab him and when he gets out, assuming he gets convicted, he’d do it again. So, how do you think you’ll react to your man killing the bastard?”
She pushed me back onto the bed and straddled me. She kissed me. The kiss was one that heated my blood and had me getting hard. She was devouring my mouth. When she came up to let us breathe, she whispered, “Let’s go get our daughter, then I’ll show you what I think in bed.”
I groaned as the images flashed through my mind. “Fuck, are you sure? Don’t do this if you’re not ready,” I pleaded.
“I’m more than ready, Donovan. I want you to make love to me tonight.”
“Then let’s go get our daughter,” I said as I kissed her. Christ, I might die from want, if we didn’t get Hope to sleep fast enough. I planned to spend a long time making love to my woman.