Page 77 of Micro
“Calm down, son, it’s not like he tuned in deliberately to watch you two getting it on. He was doing checks, while we were having a coffee stop on the journey. Never seen him spit a drink out so fast.”
“She’s not for his fucking eyes.”
Stitch grinned. “Nah, he prefers your sister,” then he burst out laughing, “wow, feels weird to be on the other side ofthatargument.”
Sophie
Itwassounnervingto be seated with the other old ladies, and to know that they were here because they felt like I had to know their stories, before I could feasibly make the right choice for love.
Tori was Ryder’s old lady, and made it clear that she’d suffered nothing personally because of Micro, except that she’d watched the other old ladies going through it. She was fierce, but quietly spoken, and I had a feeling that she would be just as deadly as any of the bikers, but she mostly remained quiet after saying her piece. Cammy, old lady to the VP, Stitch, also said that she’d had very little in the way of interactions with Micro, except that she’d found him unpleasantly predatory at times. Even hearing someone say that about him hurt me, because it was still a judgement about the man I loved, and portrayed this monstrous person they’d known, that I had a feeling I’d never meet. That was probably a good thing, to be honest.
The women all deferred to Ally, as the President’s old lady, and she was the one who seemed the most earnest and concerned.
“I know that you love him, and I can’t question that, because we’ve all fallen for men others might deem risky or dangerous, but at the centre of each of them, there’s so much depth and warmth, and heart. I just don’t see that with Micro, and I’m sorry to say that, but a man who can literally drive a car into a person, to try and kill them, isn’t someone I can see as redeemable in any way.”My god.I never imagined I’d have such conversations with those he hurt the most, but I should have seen it coming, shouldn’t I?
“That’s what he did to you?”
Ally nodded grimly. “I’m still not walking like I did before, and I may never be the same as I was, but whether Micro was aiming for me, or for Reacher, he intended to kill one of us. Or both. That was a decision he made, one he planned. It wasn’t spur of the moment. It just couldn’t have been.”
I twisted my fingers together in my lap, my heart thudding painfully in my chest at her words. It wasn’t that she was making me doubt him, not at all. She was making me doubtme. My own judgement, and decisions. My ability to read a person, and see the right thing in him. What if he really was bad, but I just couldn’t see it, because I was blinded by love? What if I just made bad decisions, because hadn’t I been trapped into making drugs for a biker club, because I picked the wrong man once before?
“We’re not trying to hurt you, or scare you,” Lissa said, leaning over from beside me, to squeeze my hands, “I’m actually very invested in getting to know my half brother better, and to see if there’s any chance of helping him with everything he’s been through, but he did attack me too, and that was terrifying. He trapped me at my therapy office, and I really thought he’d kill me. I mean, at the time, I honestly thought I was done for. Even though we’d barely spoken before, and I had my panic button there, somehow I just knew he’d made that decision before he even voiced it.”
His own sister. I didn’t even know if he’d known that when he cornered her, but either way, I could see how terrified she’d have been.
“If Grace hadn’t shown up when she did, I really don’t know how things would have gone, but that’s how we all found out that he was the one who’d terrorised the club for so long.”
Grace didn’t speak, just offered a shy smile when she was mentioned, but the youngest one, the blonde girl, Elise, spoke up next.
“He kidnapped me twice, but I’m sure you know this by now. He tore my clothes off, and he… he…” she swallowed hard, “he jerked off over me. He threatened to rape me, and kill me.”
I felt tears burning my eyes, as I saw one trickle down her cheek, and Cammy wrapped an arm around her.
“In my nightmares, sometimes he doesn’t just threaten those things. Sometimes he follows through on those threats, and he takes things from me that I never wanted him to have.” Elise covered her face with both hands, sobbing quietly, and I saw her man, Has-Been, approaching rapidly from the left of us.
“Baby,” he murmured, lifting her and sitting down with her in his lap, holding her against his chest as she cried. His eyes, when he lifted his head to look at me, were tormented.
“This. This is what he did. This is what hedoes. You keep thinking he’s a man, but he’s not. He’s amonster. You’ve heard how leopards don’t change their spots, and it’s true. Delude yourself all you want, but he doesn’t deserve to live, and if the choice had been mine, he wouldn’t still be breathing.” He got up and carried Elise away with him.
We fell silent after Has-Been’s bombshell, and I saw several sympathetic faces staring back at me as I tried to absorb everything they’d said.
“I know this probably feels like some kind of character assassination or something, but you seem like you’ve met a different version of the man we all knew, and it seems like you need all the information before you can make an informed choice. Has wasn’t wrong. It’s rare for people to change, especially enough for them to redeem themselves after horrific acts. For many of us, he’ll always be the monster under the bed, but for you, maybe he’s something very different. Just please be careful, andalwayscall us for help, if he starts to turn nasty on you. You have family now in us, and we’ve got your back,” Ally said, casting her eyes around to find her man.
Most of their men were back out in the yard now, talking to my man.Micro. The man they’d all just warned me about, yet again. I’d promised him I wouldn’t change my mind about him, but I still didn’t know if that was because I was making poor decisions, or if it was because I had met someone other than the man they’d known. Just like their men seemed to be laser focused on their old ladies, I could sense Micro’s eyes on me, and when I turned fully to look at him, he offered me that lopsided smile of his, and I made a decision that could either help, or completely fuck up everything. I waved him over.
Forty-Two
Itwasweirdbeingaround the Phoenix guys again, and after the speech I’d been given at the old clubhouse, I was pretty sure I wouldn’t see some of them ever again, so having them here again already was oddly comforting, even if several of them were still glaring daggers at me, and would take very little provocation to take fists to me again.
The bit that was really freaking me out was that fucking heart to heart the women were having over there. What if they were breaking her confidence in me? What if they were filling her head with the horrors I’d committed against them, and right now she was begging them to get her away from me? What if they were destroying everything I’d just built?
There was another voice in my head saying ‘so what, you fucking deserve that’, but I couldn’t listen to it, because I had to believe that I wasn’t losing everything, mere days after I fucking found it.
“Fuck, Elise is crying,” Has cursed, marching over to the women. I tried to follow, but Stitch caught my arm and halted me.
“Let them talk. It took a lot for them to willingly approach a place where they would see you, and have to face you, so suck it up and let them do their thing.”
“Easy for you to say, VP. It’s not your woman who was fucking attacked by this cunt.”
