Page 4 of Sin

Now I'm pregnant. Another wrench in my life’s plan. I'd always been diligent on taking my pills. Even when I wasn’t having sex and especially since Tyson. There was no way I wanted to bind myself to him for the rest of my life, and now, it looks like that’s exactly what has happened. In less than nine months, I'm going to be bringing another life into this world. Into this house. Into this abuse. An innocent baby into violence and pain. Hatred. It isn't just me that I'm going to have to worry about anymore or protect. This is my baby, and I'm going to protect it, in any way I can.

“Savannah?” Tyson calls for me from the first floor of our house.

Well, his house, really. He moved me in here after only three months of dating.

Another mistake on my part.

I shouldn’t have agreed. I knew it was too soon, but he was sweet and he made it seem that it would help with my studies by getting away from my friends and their distractions. Of course, I believed him, he was older, was supposed to be wiser. He told me he was doing it out of love, because he hated the feeling of sleeping alone in his bed. He didn’t want to be away from me, that he loved me. Little did I know that it was just the beginning. He didn’t get me away from my friends because he was helping me with my schooling. He got me away from my friends so he could seclude me and subsequently control me.

My birth control pills are in their normal spot on the bathroom counter. Displayed there, so I wouldn’t forget, so that I couldn’t forget. I won’t need those anymore. I pull open the drawer and shove them in out of frustration jabbing my finger into a pair of scissors in the process. Great. I push the bag of pregnancy tests that I was looking at for the fifth time, since I found out three weeks ago I was pregnant, into the back of the cupboard under the towels. I keep thinking I'm reading them wrong, but deep down I know I'm just in denial.

“Savannah?” He calls again, only closer this time. I walk out of the bathroom just in time to see him enter the bedroom. He's wearing basketball shorts with a black wife beater, how appropriate.

Tyson Redding is very easy on the eyes. Tall at six foot two, with deep brown hair and matching cocoa eyes, he's as handsome as handsome gets. He's muscular but still on the lean side. At twenty-eight, he's on his way up the corporate ladder at Redding Oil. It isn't lost on me that he works for his daddy, meaning his climbing is a little bit shorter than most. But he works. He's entitled, yes, but he does go into the office every day.

He eyes my appearance and me. My hair is still wet from the shower and I’m wearing my typical loungewear since I don’t plan to leave the house. My face is free of makeup for two reasons, one because it hurts like a bitch and two, I don’t want to cover up the damage he’s done. He needs to see it up close and personal so he can get a grip on the destruction he caused.

“I see you’ve cleaned yourself up?”

I don’t answer him. I’m not going to give him the pleasure of my words, I simply nod instead.

“Don’t you think it’s rude not to answer someone when they ask you a question, Savannah?”

It appears he isn't going to leave me be. “Yes, Tyson. I’ve cleaned myself up.” I start to leave the room, to get away from him, but he stops me when he grips his fingers around my forearm.

“Do you think I like it when you use your bitch tone with me, Savannah? I asked a simple question. I don’t need your attitude. Are you on the rag?” If he only knew. “Is that why you can’t seem to use the right tone with me? Am I to suffer because you can’t control your hormones?”

“No, Tyson.” I say, not wanting to start another fight.

“The boys are coming over to watch some ball. I expect you to get your ass in the kitchen and fix us some lunch.” I begin to protest. “Now, now, Savannah, you can’t use your stupid ass excuse of school anymore, seeing as though you’re no longer a student. It's time you get used to doing what’s expected and that means you get your ass in the kitchen like a good wife should.” He pushes my arm away from him, making my feet catch on the carpet and causing me to stumble.

My eyes cut to him and I glare with so much contempt that I hope he can feel it radiating from my body. “I don’t want any of your friends here, Tyson.”

“I didn’t ask your opinion on the matter.”

“Look at my face! Look what you did to me! Do you think I want your friends here staring at me, seeing the shit I allow to happen because you’re—” The taste of blood fills my mouth as soon as his hand makes contact with my face. The slap he just inflicted makes my skin burn and my eyes water.

“How long is it going to take to break you, Savannah? I’ve been going at this for four long years. At first, I thought if I eased you into it then you’d learn, being as though you think of yourself as educated. But I'm done being patient. Haven’t you noticed that my patience has worn thin? I mean, I’m sure your face and your body knows it. Why can’t your thick skull figure this shit out?” He's yelling now. The vein in the side of his neck is bulging. He's breathing hard, panting almost.

“I’m done, Tyson. I’m done. This here,” I motion my hands between the two of us. “It’s over. We aren’t good for each other. We aren’t—”

My words are cut off when he grabs me by the throat, lifting me to meet his gaze. “We aren’t over, Savannah. We won’t ever be over because you are mine. You just haven’t figured it out yet, but you will. Soon. You will." He tosses my body away from him. I hit the doorframe of the bathroom door. He watches me drop to the floor and turns to leave. I faintly hear him tell me he's going out and not to wait up. Little does he know that I meant what I said. It's done, it has to be. I vow, right there as I sit on the floor of our room, suffering from the latest pained inflicted by his hands, that Tyson Redding would never hurt me again.

“Yeah, brother. It all looks good from here to home. Everything is smooth sailing. I don’t see there being an issue with the next shipment. I hear ya. I met with the distributor and everything is copasetic. I’ll catch ya back home.” I listen to my brother preach to me about the importance of the business. “There won’t be anything to keep Fury from stepping up its game. I know, Cut. Christ, I know.” I hang up, not wanting to hear my brother, the President of our MC, dictating what I should and shouldn't be doing. He so easily forgets that I'm less than pleased to be any part of the club. The only reason why I'm sticking around is because, like it or not, it's my family. The only family I have left anyway, just my mom, my brother along with the brothers of the MC.

I’ve been alive on this God forsaken earth for twenty-nine years. I’ve seen more death, more violence than anyone should ever see. The first time I saw a guy take a bullet to the gut, I was seven. I was riding my bike up and down the street in front of the Devil’s Fury compound. Right there, in broad daylight, I saw the blood splatter and a big as a house guy named Pit, drop to his knees screaming like a pussy. That should have been the first indication that my family wasn't normal.

I thought every dad had a Harley and wore his cut and leathers ninety-nine percent of the time. I thought club life was the way it was supposed to be. It’s all I ever understood, until the time I grew up and saw that it wasn’t. Club life wasn’t the only thing out there, and club life damn sure wasn’t for me. Sad thing is, you don’t get much choice of what kind of life you live when one minute you have a mother, father, brother and sister and the next you find out that a rival gang has killed both your father and baby sister. After that type of discovery, one doesn't have a choice to walk away when you're needed to fill the void. It’s times like those when I think of my sister. Fuck, she never even saw the day when she could legally buy a beer at the local bar. All because she was my father’s daughter, and because she was his little girl. He died trying to bring his baby’s body home.

Getting off my bike, I enter the convenience store to hit the head before getting back on the road to New Mexico. Ever since their deaths, I've made it my life's mission to make something good out of the life the man upstairs has decided to dish to me. Right before stopping at the station, I had to have a face to face with a prick fabricator who is supposed to be exclusive to our club and us. Fury, the MC's front business has been an up and coming bike shop outside of the greater Las Cruses area for the past few years. He didn't think we would find out. He didn't think a bunch of leather clad, long hair, tattooed muscle heads actually had any business sense. Normally, this wouldn't be a big deal, but when you pride yourself on being one of a kind, exclusive, and your customers pay for the exclusivity, then this shit is real. Bitch thought he could sell my designs, my ideas to the highest bidder. Well, I beg to differ, and now that fucktard knows it too.

As soon I enter the store, the clerk seems to be on high alert. Typical. Whenever I go somewhere that isn't used to the presence of a MC, I get the gawking, and it's usually not by a hot chick. The MC freaks people out. They don't know us or what we're really about. They just see us as a gang of misfits, of assholes, and they never give us the time of day. That fact is one of the reasons why I hate the life so much. I shoot him a glare, one that says 'don't fuck with me'. If people are going to live their lives in stereotypes, then I'm going to encourage them. Why waste my breath trying to convince them otherwise? Why tell them I've done more for our country in my four years of service than they will do in their entire lifetime? They won't see the solider in me, the Marine. They only see the beard that covers my face, the sleeves of ink that runs up my arms, and the leather that covers by back.

The sign on the door of the bathroom states 'out of order'. Fuck me. I really need to take a piss. "Hey, you sure this shitter is out of order?"

"Yes." I guess I'm worth only one word. No 'sorry', nothing. Typical.

Fuck him; I'll just take a piss around back. If I'm lucky, maybe he's parked out back and I can piss in his gas tank or on his seats. Let him know that people in this world don't want much, just a fucking place to take a piss.