There’s no going back
Present Day
The wind whips around my face as I make my way down the Bonnet Carré Spillway. Unlike most people, I love these spillways and causeways. Something about knowing there is nothing on both sides but water—no salvation of any sort should the structure collapse—has always been an odd comfort for me. And at these speeds, it feels like I’m being transported to my deliverance.
Bastian’s Ducati won’t go unmissed for long but slipping away in the dead of night while he “handles business” was easier than I expected it to be. However,I do feel bad for sneaking out on Christian and Drew. At the very least, I have a couple of hours’ head start before they set out to find me.
Honestly, I don’t know why Bastian continues on this path of—whatever it is he’s trying to accomplish. Over the years, he and I have become friends of sorts. It struck me as strange at first, given that I was the big, bad guy that hurt Zoey, and his loyalty was always to Jax and Rory, his cousins, and therefore, also to Zane and Zoey.
One night he just appeared at the club I was at back in New York. I was just out of rehab and struggling desperately not to take that drink. I sat at the bar, drink in hand, staring at it. I’d had a shit day for no other reason than I was back at that godforsaken school that I hated so much. Ryder hadn’t returned from England, and I was alone to deal with the aftermath of my expulsion the year before.
I was forced to apologize to the one person on this earth I knew without a doubt deserved to rot in hell. To the person I would have killed that day had the staff not stopped me—the promise I made to make him pay.I can still see the smugness in his eyesthe last time I saw him.Those memories will haunt me until my dying breath.
I was just about to bring the drink to my lips when a hand reached over, grabbing my drink, turning it up to his lips. Then he took me somewhere else. Somewhere that led me into a world of sex kinks and fetishes that allowed me to find release and relief. For a time.
His interest in me perplexed, but over time, I almost welcomed his unexpected appearances in my life. Especially when he helped me return to River City for Zoey’s graduation so I could apologize for my sins.
Now that I know we share DNA, it all makes sense, though that revelation has been tough to swallow. Sebastian isn’t a caring man. He’s a man that revels in doling out his own warped form of justice and only cares about hisla Famiglia. The family. I suppose it’s one more thing that makes us more alike than not.
But his determination to make me ”better” has been annoying.
It’s that determination that tells me he will look for me, but by the time he realizes I’m gone, finding me will be much easier said than done. He’ll have to do it the old-fashioned way. Louisiana may not be huge, but I figure it will take at least a day or two before he finds me. Or finds his bike anyway.
It seems like no time has passed when I find myself on interstate forty-nine heading north. My mind has been rushing as quickly as this bike. It’s a constant I have struggled with for a long time, even as a child, but it has become worse in the last several years. I’m intelligent enough to realize the drugs don’t help. They only exacerbate the issues I have in the long run, but the temporary relief they provide is the only time the world doesn’t feel so loud, and everything slows down. The only time I don’t feel like I’m drowning in regret and guilt and anger and turmoil. That’s why I’m dumb enough to continue down the path I’m on.
The long stretch of road before me is dark and endless. It’s an ironic state of events considering that’s the way I’ve felt for so long.
I find myself thinking about what brought me here to this moment. Literally, it was the day I overdosed back in Craryville. I knew when I looked in Ryder’s eyes that he would doanythingto save me, even if that meant calling the one person I hated most at that moment in my life. The one person I thought had betrayed me the worst. He called Sebastian, knowing there was a chance, at least in his mind, that I would never forgive him. The fuckin idiot doesn’t seem to understand that I couldn’t hate him if I wanted to. He’s been my saving grace for a long damn time. No matter how pissed I may be, I will never turn my back on him. Not in this life. Not in the next life either. Although, I hope there’s not a next one.
Bastian didn’t play fair either. He had no intention of it, laying me out cold with one hit. I can still feel the sting of those brass knuckles connecting with my jaw even now. Son of a bitch is lucky he didn’t break my damn jaw, although I doubt he would’ve cared.
And when I woke up on the plane a little while later, I was the epitome of an ass.
Three months ago
I look around groggily, trying to figure out where the hell I’m at. It doesn’t take long to realize I’m on a plane. Not just any plane. A private one. My jaw tightens as I recall the events earlier in the day.
When my best fucking friend stabbed me right in the back. I still can’t believe he called Sebastian. I am so pissed with him I can’t see straight, but I understand why he did it. Desperation is a funny thing, and Ryder was desperate.
I turn to look across the aisle to see Bastian sitting, legs stretched out long and relaxed with his hands behind his head, wearing sunglasses. I don’t need to see his eyes to know he’s watching me. It’s just another day for him. Just another hit.
I look down to see I’m handcuffed to the seat. I roll my eyes, wondering what it is he thinks I can do at twenty thousand feet.
Actually, the handcuffs are probably a good idea because I want to beat Bastian’s ass.
“Where the fuck are you taking me?” I bark out loudly.
“Already told you,fratello, I’m taking you home.”
“I told you, I’m not your fucking brother. You think because I know now that suddenly means something to me? Twenty-nine years you’ve been nothing to me. You’re going to stay that way.”
“I’m taking you back to River City to dry out. End of story.”
I laugh at that. At the sheer lunacy that he thinks he can force me to do anything. Like I’m one of his little minions. “What makes you think it will stick? What makes anyone think I want to dry out?”
“Doesn’t matter what you want. It’s happening.”
“Don’t you know a person has to want it for it to work? You get me clean, and the minute I leave, I go get a fix. Plain and simple.”
