Free Yours: A Forever After Novella by Natasha Thomas Page A

you’ve always been meant to be, and I’m never letting you go. Not again. Not fucking ever.”
     
    And I mean it. Every word.
     

CHAPTER TEN
    ~ Harleigh ~

     
    “Why didn’t you tell us?” My dad asks for the hundredth time since he ended Spike’s life and my nightmare. “Your mom and I…we would have…we could have. Shit,” he hisses, running his hands through his hair.
     
    “Dad,” I murmur, hating to see him upset like this.
     
    My dad might be the VP of one of the largest motorcycle clubs in the country, feared and revered by men who would scare even the boogie man, but when it comes to my mom and his kids, he’s nothing more than a big teddy bear. He has a huge heart and has always protected us, so I know the fact he couldn’t save me from Spike – that he can’t fix the damage Spike caused – has to be eating away at him.
     
    Repeating myself, I call out a little louder.
    “Daddy.”
     
    It doesn’t matter that I’m a twenty-six-year-old woman, I’m married, or that I’ve been living out of home for years, I still call him daddy when I’m vulnerable and need him to listen to me.
     
    “Yeah, baby,” he answers sitting down beside me.
     
    After carrying me into the bathroom and handing me a pile of clothes, Lyric told me I had five minutes to get dressed before he was coming back in. I was done in two, but I spent my remaining three minutes sitting on the closed toilet seat considering what to do next. Now that Spike and his threats aren’t an issue and I know that Lyric is safe, I need to figure out what I want to do with my life.
     
    *****
     
    In the beginning, it was an easy decision to make. I had to get away from Furnace, even though that meant leaving my family, friends, and Lyric behind. Sure, I had responsibilities at home, such as my job at the hardware store and school, but they paled in comparison to making sure my husband was safe.
     
    My boss, Lance, the man who owned the hardware store was sad to see me go but told me that my job was always there waiting for me if I ever wanted to come back. I wouldn’t, but Lance didn’t need to know that.
     
    Deciding to finish college online was a given. Since I was a junior in high school, it had always been a goal of mine to get my business degree. Whether I used it or not wasn’t what mattered, just that I did what I set out to do.
     
    When I contacted my professors and course advisor, they weren’t happy with me changing things up seeing as I was close to graduating, but they understood when I explained that I had family issues that left me no choice but to complete my degree online or drop out altogether. It wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t the whole truth either.
     
    Where implementing my move was easy, nothing about actually following through with it was. Horrible didn’t come close to describing my first few months in L.A. I barely ate, didn’t get out of bed unless it was absolutely necessary, and forgot for a brief period that showering should be a daily occurrence, not weekly. In short, I was homesick. Terribly so.
     
    Faye let me wallow in what she thought was self-pity at the time for as long as she could stand it. The days had bled into weeks, turning into months of depression and I was only getting worse. Not seeing Lyric every day, not being able to touch him, or hear his voice as he told me he loved me was torture. He had been my everything for so long, that being without him was akin to losing a limb. But regardless of my heart begging me to go to Lyric and tell him everything, to let him take care of me, I knew I made the right choice by leaving.
     
    Ripping open my curtains and tearing the mass of blankets I had wrapped myself in like a burrito, Faye stood at the end of my bed glaring down at me. I have to admit, the determination in her eyes that day scared me a little. Especially since Faye was usually the calmest of all of us.
     
    “Get. Up,” Faye growled, crossing her arms over her