The Road Back (The Unknowns Motorcycle Club Book 3) Read Online Free PDF Page A

of some bruising. The pinky and ring finger had been broken, though, and had required a splint. As for the blow to his upper back, he had gotten lucky there, too. There were no injuries, and it had been cared for with an icepack as Alex was given the splint and the stitches.
     
    Watching the doctor put the stitches in took his mind back to a time that he thought of often, but never revealed to anyone. It was the one big secret he had been keeping for all of these years. It was the secret he had nearly told Amanda about although he barely knew her. Not even Jameson or Slim knew about it, and they knew just about everything about him that there was to know.
     
    At the age of eleven, Alex had spent a lot of nights in bed with his head buried under a pillow. It had started before this, but he had never really been sure what he was hearing from the other end of the hallway until he was eleven. At eleven, he knew the sound for what it was: his father beating his mother. And as he got older, it had gotten worse.
     
    He had come to know the different sounds of the beatings. When it was with only his hands, the sounds were dull and reminded him of what it sounded like when his mom would tenderize the steaks before throwing them on the grill. When he used the belt, they were sharp sounds that were almost like electricity. They’d fill the house with almost cartoon-like snapping sounds.
     
    On the mornings after, his mom would be walking funny or favor a certain arm when she went about her work in the kitchen while making Alex’s lunch for school. He’d come to know what these conditions were from, mainly from the distance that existed between his parents in the days in between. But then a time would come when everything seemed to be fine. He’d actually see his parents kissing quickly when they thought he wasn’t looking or holding hands while watching TV.
     
    But then he’d hear the sounds again, and he’d have to stick his head under his pillow, muffling the sounds of his mother’s cries of pain. When he did this, he imagined what the lives of his friends might be like. He only had two close friends in school, and he knew that at least one of them, Paul, had a very happy family. His parents were always together, and on the few times that Alex had gone to Paul’s house, his mom and dad were always happy. He’d even seen them holding hands while sitting on the couch, laughing with each other as if they were the best of friends.
     
    Alex wondered that that must be like. The concept had seemed foreign to him at the time, and he wondered if there was maybe something wrong with Paul’s folks. But when he hid his head under the pillow to drown out the sounds coming from the other end of the hallway, he became certain that it was his parents that were different.
     
    Thinking about this as an eleven year old, he tried to figure out why his father treated his mom that way. Did she say things when Alex wasn’t around that made his father think that she deserved it? Alex didn’t think so; in fact, he didn’t see what any woman could ever say that would cause her to deserve being beaten. It just didn’t seem right.
     
    All there was to do was hide his head and wait for sleep to come.
     
    One night, though, he was done hiding his head. It was a hot June night, and for some reason or another, he had neglected to close his bedroom door all the way, something he or his parents had done for his entire childhood.  His mother’s cries of pain were louder through that small crack in his door, and the snapping of the belt was like a gunshot.
     
    For the first time in his life, he felt true anger take hold of him. He loved his parents equally, but he also knew that striking a woman was wrong. It was nothing his father had ever told him, but something he had figured out on his own. It was this anger that stirred him out of bed and started him towards his bedroom door.
     
    As he walked down the small hallway that connected their