Chapter 4 Who Was Jesse

Raven's POV

I didn't sleep.

I spent most of the night sitting on the floor with my back against the door until my legs went numb. Eventually, I forced myself to stand and started searching for a way out.

The window was the first place I checked. I pulled back the curtain and grabbed the metal bars with both hands, pulling as hard as I could, but they wouldn't move. They were bolted into the wall, and the bolts looked newer than everything else in the room. I couldn't help wondering how many other people had stood in this exact spot, trying to escape.

Next, I checked the bathroom. It had a toilet, a sink, and a small shower, but there was no window. The only opening was a ventilation fan in the ceiling, and it was far too small for anyone to squeeze through.

I returned to the bedroom door and tried the handle again, even though I had heard Reaper lock it. As expected, it wouldn't open. I pressed my ear against the door and listened. Music was still playing somewhere in the clubhouse, and every now and then, I heard a man laughing. It was obvious that nobody was coming to let me out.

With nothing else to do, I decided to search the dresser.

I told myself I was looking for something useful, perhaps a phone, a knife, or a key. But the truth was that I wanted to know more about the man who had kidnapped me. Surely, someone who could walk into a house full of people and take a woman against her will had something in his room that might tell me who he really was.

The top drawers contained neatly folded black T-shirts and jeans. The next drawer held socks and a box of bullets. I stared at the ammunition for a moment before quickly closing the drawer, almost as though I expected the bullets to jump out and bite me.

The bottom drawer was nearly empty. Inside was an old leather jacket, and beneath it, I noticed a photograph in a cheap wooden frame.

I picked it up.

The photograph showed two men standing beside a motorcycle in the sunlight. One of them was Reaper, although he looked a few years younger. He wasn't exactly smiling, but his expression was softer than anything I had seen since meeting him. His arm was wrapped around the other man's neck, pulling him close.

The other man looked younger, perhaps nineteen or twenty. He had the same dark hair and sharp jaw as Reaper, but unlike him, he was laughing openly at the camera, as though someone had just told him the funniest joke he had ever heard.

I turned the frame over and noticed something written on the back in blue ink.

Me and the big guy. Don't be mad, Kane.

I sat on the edge of the bed, studying the photograph for a long time. Eventually, I returned it to its original position beneath the jacket and closed the drawer.

Sometime after sunrise, I heard the lock turn.

I jumped to my feet, expecting Reaper, but instead, a woman in her fifties entered the room. She was short and round, with silver hair tied into a bun and reading glasses hanging from a chain around her neck. She carried a plate of eggs and toast in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other.

"Morning, honey," she greeted me cheerfully, as though this were an ordinary morning and I were simply another guest. "I'm Rose. Everybody here calls me Mama Rose. You can call me whatever you like, as long as it's polite."

I didn't respond. I simply stared at her, unsure what to make of her friendliness.

She placed the food on the dresser before looking me up and down. Her gaze settled on my graduation dress, which was now wrinkled and dirty around the hem from the dusty ground outside.

"Lord, they brought you here in that?" she asked, shaking her head. "I'll find you some proper clothes. Eat your food."

"I'm not hungry," I replied.

"I didn't ask if you were hungry. I told you to eat," she answered, folding her arms. "You won't help yourself by starving. Trust me, I've been around this club for thirty years."

I looked at the eggs, and my stomach twisted with hunger. That was when I realized I hadn't eaten anything since the party. Reluctantly, I sat down and took a bite of toast, which seemed to satisfy Rose.

"Good girl," she said approvingly before lowering her voice. "Now listen to me, because I'm only going to say this once. Don't provoke him. Whatever you're feeling, keep it to yourself. He isn't a man you want to push."

"He kidnapped me," I reminded her. "I think I'm allowed to push."

"Allowed isn't the same as smart, honey," she replied.

I put the toast down and looked directly at her. "Who's Jesse?"

Rose went still. For the first time since entering the room, she seemed unsure what to say. Her gaze briefly shifted toward the dresser before moving to the door.

"Last night, he said I'd pay for Jesse," I continued. "Who is he?"

"That isn't my story to tell," she answered quietly.

"Please," I begged. "I don't even know why I'm here."

She studied me for a long moment, and I noticed her expression soften. But instead of answering my question, she shook her head.

"Finish your breakfast," she instructed. "Then come to the kitchen. He wants you where he can see you."

Half an hour later, I walked into the kitchen wearing a pair of jeans that were too big for me and a plain gray T-shirt Rose had found somewhere. My hair was still a mess, and I hadn't even washed my face, but I couldn't bring myself to care.

The kitchen was large and noisy, with several bikers sitting around a long wooden table, eating breakfast and talking over one another. The older man with long gray hair was there, drinking coffee, while the huge bald man from my father's house stood at the stove frying bacon. A few of them stopped talking when they noticed me, but most continued eating as though my presence meant nothing.

Then the back door opened, and Reaper walked in.

The entire room fell silent. Nobody had to tell the men to stop talking. They simply did, all at once, as though someone had switched off the sound. One young biker who had been leaning back in his chair immediately sat upright.

Reaper paid no attention to any of them. He walked straight to the counter, poured himself a cup of coffee, and only then turned around to look at me.

I knew I should have kept quiet, especially after Rose's warning. But I was exhausted, frightened, and still thinking about the photograph of the laughing young man I had found in Reaper's room.

"What did my father do?" I demanded.

The kitchen grew even quieter, and the man standing at the stove reached over to turn off the heat.

Reaper took a sip of his coffee before answering. "Sit down."

"No," I said. "I want to know. You took me from my own house. I think I have a right to know why."

For a moment, I thought he would ignore my question. Instead, he placed his cup on the counter and looked at me.

"Your father borrowed money from me," he began. "A lot of money. When he couldn't pay it back, he didn't come to me like a man. He went behind my back and paid another club to hit one of my shipments on the highway."

I shook my head in disbelief. "My father wouldn't do that. He's a businessman. He doesn't even know people like that."

"He knows them," Reaper replied. "He paid them well."

"You're lying," I insisted.

"My brother was riding with that shipment." His voice grew quieter rather than louder, which somehow made his words even more frightening. "They shot him and left him on the side of the road. He bled for almost an hour before anyone found him. He was twenty years old."

I struggled to breathe as I remembered the photograph of the young man laughing at the camera, with his older brother's arm wrapped around his neck.

"Jesse," I whispered.

Something changed in Reaper's expression for a brief moment, but it disappeared before I could understand what it was.

He picked up his coffee and walked past me toward the door. But when he reached my side, he stopped and leaned closer, lowering his voice so that only I could hear him.

"Your father didn't just rob me," he said. "He left my brother in the dirt."