Gripping her hip, he tugged her close, slamming his lips down on hers.
“Important call?”
“I can deal with it soon. Now, I want to dance.”
Chapter Seven
After two hours, the heels that Temperance was wearing meant he had no choice but to take them back home. Jay asked if he was coming up, and Richard declined, letting him know he had some business to take care of. He kissed Temperance good night, with the promise that Jay would be sleeping in his own bed.
Leaving his woman, and in a way, his man, he rode over to Lewis’s place, not surprised to see the various cars and bikes of the club already parked. He’d already sent a text to let his brothers know he was on the way over there.
He knocked on the door, and Lewis was the one to answer the door.
“What the fuck is this? All of you turn up at my house, uninvited?” Lewis asked.
“Uninvited? What’s going on, Lewis?”
He found the rest of his club brothers waiting in the living room. Some were standing, and others were sitting. None of them actually looked happy about the situation.
“Nothing is going on. You’re the one that is in my place, and after Mandy’s attack, I don’t think you should be coming around.”
Russ threw a large file down on the table. “So, you got what you wanted, and that’s it? The club ceases to exist?”
Pictures of women, dead, beaten, and drowned spilled out of the file. Richard had a strong stomach, but the sight of them made even his gut turn.
“What the fuck?”
“We created this club for a place for us as businessmen, but we found a cause. We were helping people, Lewis. You were the one that took us down that path.”
“I’ve been distracted of late,” Lewis said.
Richard stared at his club brother, and saw the truth. “This hasn’t been about the women all along, has it?”
“What? Of course it has.”
“Then why the fuck weren’t you over this?” Blake asked. “Look, I love the club, and the women, and the fun, and just being something fucking different. But we were meant to mean something. We’ve got money, all of us have. We’ve come from nothing, are nothing, but what set us apart from other wealthy businessmen, is this.”
“Was it just about you getting back Mandy?” Jamie asked.
Richard couldn’t argue, but if Lewis only used them to get to Mandy, then the club was about to take an ugly turn, and he didn’t like that. Other MCs, they dealt with drugs, with money, women, whatever they wanted. They had their own glue that bound them together as a club.
The BBMC was bound by a cause to help women.
It was how Richard could look in the mirror every day, and still keep breathing as he did. He loved the club, what they did.
Lewis bit his lip. “I’ve not used you. I’ve not turned my back on the club.”
“Then what the fuck have you been doing?”
“He’s been trying to help me, remember?” Mandy said, coming into the room.
They all turned to the woman who didn’t look strong enough to be in a room full of men. All of them were dominant, demanding, and they were scary as fuck.
“Mandy?”
“I can’t let you tear apart your club.” Mandy’s arms were folded. “Lewis told me what you did, and how you saved me. He’s also, against doctors’ orders, showed me what I was doing. How I was helping these women.”
Richard glanced at Lewis, seeing the shame in his face. The doctor had said that if he tried to push too hard, they could lose Mandy. She was at a frail point in her recovery.
“These women, they need us, and Mandy, she was helping them.”
“Lewis believes that more information is locked inside my head. I’ve got to get it open, and little points, trigger a moment, or at least a moment within a memory. It’s what happened earlier today, only I couldn’t help it. My past, it’s filled with horror, and remembering that, it’s going to hurt,” she said. “It’s one of the reasons I don’t want to see my family. Not only do I not completely remember them, but what if by simply looking at them, it’s a trigger?”
Richard’s throat felt thick as he watched the woman start to cry. The tears ran down her cheeks, and she made no move to bat them away.
“I want to help,” Lewis said. “My mission started with finding Mandy. The deeper down this path I went, I saw that it didn’t matter if I got her, I’d still have to find some way of, I don’t know, saving as many as we could.”
Silence fell on the room.
John, who was sitting by the paperwork, gathered it up.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t there for this. I should have been.”