JUSTIFIED (Motorcycle Club Romance) by Brynn Bekkwith Page B

shape. “Is that blood?!”
     
    “Marina,” my father said. “Ash. What happened? One of you needs to tell me what happened right now.”
     
    My father was terrifying when he got mad. A brut of a man with bass in his voice and narrow, beady eyes, one look from him could send someone huddling in a corner. His arms covered in tattoos and his skull cap always in place, he was known around our town as the president of the Black Dogs MC. Descended from decades of brave biker-loving men, the club had been formed long before I was born. It was our world and it was our lifestyle – all I’d ever known.
     
    “I don’t know how to tell you this,” I whimpered. How do you tell your own father that you were just sexually assaulted? And that your attacker was the son of the president of a rival MC? Perhaps that’s why I’d lusted for Tripp like I did. I knew he was off limits.
     
    I held my head low and felt Ash’s eyes on me. He reached over and squeezed my hand. “Marina was attacked.”
     
    I glanced up and thanked Ash for saying what I didn’t have the strength to say.
     
    “Attacked?” My father, all 270 pounds of him, stood up, fists clenched.
     
    “Tripp Cotton,” Ash said. His face winced and he turned to avoid my father’s reaction.
     
    “What the hell were you doing around that piece of shit?!” my father’s voice boomed.
     
    “Rex,” my mother said as she grabbed his arm. “Shh. You’re going to wake everyone up.” I’d forgotten that my two younger sisters were asleep in their beds down the hall.
     
    “We were at a bonfire,” I said. I still couldn’t look at him. “Tripp was talking to me and then he asked if I wanted to go on a walk.”
     
    My eyes burned hot. I couldn’t finish the rest, and suddenly my body collapsed on the floor. My mother rushed to my side as she and Ash worked to help me back up.
     
    “It doesn’t matter what happened,” Ash said. He held his shoulders back and took a deep breath, fighting off the tears that filled his eyes. “I killed him.”
     
    “You what?” my father squinted as he studied Ash’s face. None of us could tell whether he was proud or furious.
     
    “I-I killed him,” Ash stammered. “I snapped. And then I killed him.”
     
    My father slammed his hands on the table and turned his head away, looking lost in thought for a moment. The three of us stood in silence, waiting for him to speak.
     
    He paced around the kitchen for a minute before grabbing his phone and making a call. “Yeah, Riggs, it’s Rex. Meet me in five at the clubhouse.”
     
    “What are you doing?” my mom asked, fear in her eyes. Her hands clenched at her neckline. They’d been together over twenty years, and she’d seen him do a lot of things, but this was different.
     
    “We’re taking care of it,” my dad said, like it was nothing. Like he was just taking out the trash. “I need to know where the body is.”
     
    Ash and I exchanged looks and his face softened as his eyes filled with a tiny sliver of hope.
     
    “County line road,” Ash said. “Two miles north of the red light intersection. There’s a cornfield and a sign. It’s just before 86 th avenue.”
     
    My father pursed his lips and sighed as if it was just a mere inconvenience that he had to clean up someone else’s murder; just another day in the life of the Club.
     
    “Take this to the grave.” He turned to all three of us before walking out and waved his finger in our faces. “I mean it.”
     
    Ash took a seat the kitchen table and breathed a sigh of relief. Color was returning to his face, though we both knew it wasn’t over yet. It would never be over. We’d both carry this heavy secret for the rest of our lives, and I couldn’t help but blame myself. I never should’ve given Tripp Cotton a second glance. I never should have walked off with a boy I hardly knew from a rival club. Ash never would’ve gotten himself into that situation if it weren’t for my dumb