Page 137 of Beast

CHAPTER 57

BEAST

The Past

It’stwilight and the streets are covered in deep shadow as Dodger and I ride our Harleys through Port Town.

Twenty minutes ago, I was having a beer with Sticky and Viking at the clubhouse when he texted me, demanding I meet him somewhere. But to not tell anyone, emphasizing it was important no one knew. When I asked him what it was about, he told me to get my ass down to the location and stop fucking about.

I don’t have a fucking clue what this is about, why I am being dragged into town at supper time. But I know better than to question my old man. Everyone in the Knights of St. Boniface does. Because Dodger is as unpredictable as they come.

We pull into an alleyway near the old theater and park our bikes.

“We walk from here,” he says.

I follow him, and it doesn’t take me long to realize the route we are taking is avoiding all the CCTV cameras in the area.

An uneasy feeling churns in my gut.

Dodger doesn’t want anyone to know where we are going.

Which means whatever this is, it isn’t sanctioned by the club.

We slip through the dusky shadows and finally stop outside a little house across from the old theater. The lights are on inside, and I can see someone inside. A beautiful woman. Her long blonde hair pulled into a thick braid down her back.

Something stirs in my chest.

“Do you recognize her, son?” Dodger’s deep voice cuts into the fading light.

“Should I?”

He chuckles. But it’s cold and mocking. “When you were small you used to cry yourself to sleep at night over her because you thought she was dead.”

In my head, the years peel back like the pages of a book and land on the memory of the first person I ever loved.

My gaze darts from the woman to my father. “Are you telling me that’s Bluebelle?”

He chuckles. But it’s cold and cruel. “Yes, that’s what I’m telling you. But she goes by Belle now.”

I turn my attention back to the beautiful blonde moving about inside her house, dishing up dinner at a small table set for two,and I know in my heart it is her. The little girl who vanished from my life twenty-five years ago.

A long-healed wound cracks open in my chest.

My childhood best friend.

The little girl we all used to call Blue.

The first person to show me the deep pain of loss when she died.

I keep a photo of her and I in my wallet to remind me that nothing good ever lasts.

What Guinevere and Jennifer did to me pales in comparison to the deep grief I felt growing up without Blue.

I can’t drag my eyes off her. Her luscious lips. Her big blue eyes. The dimples in her cheeks. She’s fucking beautiful.

It’s her.

For the first time in a long time, I feel a surge of love spill into my chest.

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