Page 64 of Stone

“No shit,” Bandit muttered.

Connie threw her hands up and screeched, “Will you shut up!”

Bandit’s lips thinned. “Fuck this.” He turned and stomped his way to the clubhouse, before disappearing inside.

Opening Bessie’s door, I climbed in and pulled my seat belt across my body, clicking it into place. As I wound the window down, I gave Connie a tentative smile. “I’m sorry I lost it. John’s letter came out of nowhere. Before he enlisted, he promised he wouldn’t be in danger, it’s what’s kept me going. Now he’s saying the opposite, and I’m confused because I didn’t think this would happen. All the news stations are saying there may be a war, andI’m terrified. All I want is for John to be safe. Then, to find out that Bandit encouraged it all… Well… I guess I freaked.”

Connie rested her fingers on the open window. “Can I see the letter?”

Going into my purse, I pulled it out and handed it to her.

She smoothed out the crumpled paper, her eyes moving left to right as she read the words. A small smile played around her lips, but after a few seconds of reading, it slowly faded. When she finished, she looked up, folded the paper carefully, and handed it back to me with troubled eyes. “I’m sorry. I hate that my son blindsided you that way.”

I slipped the letter inside my purse, expelling a resigned breath.

Blindsided didn’t come close. John had twisted me inside out until I was raw and exposed. The frustration came from having no choice in what was happening. I felt like a Victorian wife with no agency; a woman with no vote and no opinion that mattered.

John wasn’t taking me seriously, and it made me ache inside.

“I have to go.” I started the engine and turned to Connie. “It’s probably best I don’t come Sunday. After what just happened, Bandit won’t want me around.”

Connie’s face paled. “Don’t do this, Elise. Don’t take yourself away from us. We’re your support system.”

“That’s just it,” I whispered. “I don’t feel very supported.”

“It’s just a difference of opinion,” she insisted. “Bandit’s pig-headed, but I know he wouldn’t want you out there alone and adrift. You’re John’s, which means you’re ours. Families have differences of opinion sometimes. It doesn’t mean we think any less of you.”

My throat thickened as I studied her pleading expression, and a realization darted through me.

Every choice I made was laden with guilt.

I never wanted John to enlist, but I felt guilty for opposing it. At sixteen, I’d agreed to something I didn’t really understand, but as time went on and I matured, I wanted a say in what happened, and I even felt guilty for that because John didn’t fall in love with a girl who spoke out and made demands. I felt guilty for growing up and wanting to be heard.

I’d been ignoring my needs for his, and it worried me, because I wasn’t sure I could continue down a path that made me unhappy.

On the one hand, John told me he wanted me to have a voice, but on the other, he didn’t listen to me. Even the club and all its patriarchal rules made me feel guilty for speaking up, like today. Was this how it would always be? The men telling me the way it was and expecting to be obeyed? Or else I’d get a gun pointed at my head.

Everything felt wrong—like I’d been catapulted into a world I didn’t understand. I felt sick because, for the first time ever, my inner voice whispered words that made my stomach churn with doubts.

Is this really the life I want to live…?

Chapter Sixteen

Bandit

Seth’s eyes lowered, unable to hold my stare.

I leaned over the kitchen table. “Look at me, asshole.”

He looked at me.

“John’s gonna beat your ass. You know that, right?”

“I was protectin’ you,” he blustered. “Nobody comes in here and starts mouthin’ off, especially a little bitch—”

I slashed a hand through the air to silence him.

“You were protectin’ Prez?” Abe grated out incredulously. “From an eighteen-year-old girl who was unarmed and couldn’t punch her way through a bowl of damned Jell-O? Well, thank fuck you were around. It was close there for a while.” He sat back in his chair, shaking his head disbelievingly.

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