Page 30 of Tarnished

Gin, who was sitting next to me, reached up to gently squeeze my shoulder, trying to comfort me. “He’ll be alive,” Sam assured me. “Tank is too… valuable to them.”

I frowned, my brows furrowing. “What?” That didn’t make sense. How was he valuable? People like him were considered obstacles to people like the Bradleys. It only made sense for them to eliminate him quickly.

River sighed. “I may be betraying Tank’s trust by telling everyone this,” River began, “but Tank informed me of something while you three were in Mexico.” A bad feeling crept into my stomach. My palms began to sweat; I wiped them on my jeans. “The Bradley family has operated before, but the FBI took them out—or at least, they tried to. They dismantled them for a few years, at the very least.” My knee began to bounce as my impatience grew. I wanted to know what was going on.

“Tank was with the Bradley family for fifteen years,” River said. Silence fell upon the room. “He was a victim. From birth until the ring was dismantled when he was fifteen, Tank was tortured much the same way Clarke was.”

Fifteen… Fifteen fucking years.

I lurched from my chair and ran for the nearest trashcan before emptying my stomach. Tears slid down my cheeks. What I’d witnessed Clarke endure for mere months had been horrific and traumatizing enough, and River was now telling me that Ash had been a victim of that kind of torture for fifteen fucking years?

How was he even a functioning adult? How had he survived that shit? Looking at him now, no one would ever know he’d endured so much hell. He was a big, cuddly teddy bear. Sure, he looked threatening, but he was soft as a marshmallow on the inside. So tender and loving. Not the least bit hardened unless he needed to be.

I stood back up and swiped at my cheeks, though my tears kept falling. Gin stood from his chair as well and drew me into a hug.

“We’re going to find him,” Gin promised, his words filled with conviction. With a promise. “And we’re going to make those mother fuckers pay for taking him from you.”

I barely managed a nod before falling apart in this kind man’s arms—Tank’s brother. His family. Family I was getting to lean on while Tank suffered.

It wasn’t fucking fair.

23

Clarke

I was a broken mess of a woman. Staring at my reflection in the mirror, I barely recognized myself. My wet hair hung limply around my shoulders, and my face was too pale. And my eyes… they were haunted. Even when Tank had rescued me from that hell hole, I hadn’t been this… broken.

I wasn’t Tank and Beck’s woman. I was a mere shell of the woman they loved. How could I be normal while knowing Tank sacrificed himself to save me and Beck? How was I even meant to fucking live with that?

He was gone. And it was my fault.

Guilt ate at my insides, tearing me to pieces with sharp teeth. Pain sliced through my blood vessels with sharp talons, slowly bleeding me out.

“Hey.” I looked over at Adelaide, blinking slowly. She stepped further into the bathroom and grabbed the brush from the counter, running it through my dark strands, gently working the tangles out of my hair. “Life is real shit sometimes.”

I swallowed thickly. “Yeah,” I rasped. It really was. And knowing Tank was gone, more than likely never coming home, was the worst I’d ever felt. Being raped multiple times a day was easier to cope with than this.

I could gain back my bodily autonomy. I could heal from my trauma.

I couldn’t bring Tank back home. Would I ever get to hold him again? Sleep squished between him and Beck? Would I ever get to see him smile at me or hear him call me ‘little one’?

My heart ached. God, it hurt so fucking much. Was I going to have a heart attack? That was what it felt like. Like my body wanted to fucking give out on me. Just give up and give in to the pain.

“Can I tell you something about River?” Adelaide asked. When I nodded, she informed me, “He’s my husband. And if there’s one thing I know about my husband, it’s that when he says he’s going to do something, he does it. He doesn’t care what boundaries he crosses or what moral codes he has to break—even if those morals are his own.” Her eyes met mine in the mirror. “He swore to all of us that he would bring Tank home. He has not had a wink of sleep since finding out Tank is missing.”

Tears blurred my vision, and I closed my eyes, trying desperately to hold them back. I’d already cried so much. My eyes were sore and puffy, and I had a headache from dehydration.

“Chances of him surviving are—” I croaked, but she cut me off.

“I know,” she said softly. “They’re slim to none. That’s what I said, too.” She set the brush on the counter and began to braid my wet hair. “How much do you know of Tank’s past?”

I frowned, meeting her gaze in the mirror again. What did his past have to do with any of this? “I know he was… he went through what I did for fifteen years.” That fact still turned my stomach. How did a kid survive that kind of shit for fifteen years? Tank didn’t even seem the least bit traumatized. There were absolutely no signs.

Adelaide nodded. “He did. He belonged to the same family that took you. Despite what we know he has to be enduring right now, this works in our favor. It means they’ll want him alive. He was the one who got away. The one that got free. And if they kept him personally for fifteen years, he was valuable to them.” All of this was turning my stomach, making it slosh, but I was also clinging to her words with both hands, hoping she was right. That he would be alive. That they wouldn’t kill him. “River is betting that he’ll be alive when the club finds him.”

My knees gave out, and I sank to the floor, hot tears streaking down my cheeks. Bringing my hands up to cover my face, I sobbed, curling in on myself. Adelaide sank to the floor beside me, wrapping me in her arms, my braid abandoned. This was the first bit of hope I’d had in over twenty-four hours, and it was as helpful as it was destructive. Because even though he was alive…

He was, more than likely, suffering greatly.