Three Ruthless Bikers : One Temptation

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR — Edmund's Story

LENA'S POV

Edmund went on television two days after the recusal.

I found out because Axel ran into the kitchen with his phone already turned toward me, breakfast forgotten, his face doing something between disbelief and fury.

"He is on the news," Axel said. "Right now. Live."

We crowded around the screen. Ghost arrived seconds later. Rook came in from the medical room still holding a bandage roll. David stood in the doorway with his arms crossed.

Edmund looked smaller on television than he had at the altar. Older. But his voice had not changed. Still that polished certainty, like every word had been rehearsed in front of a mirror until it sounded spontaneous.

"I want to address the speculation surrounding my private life," Edmund said to the interviewer. "I am a man who has built businesses, created jobs, and yes, made personal choices that some may not understand. But I have never once acted outside the bounds of consent and care."

"He is lying to a national audience," Axel said.

"He is good at it," Rook said.

Edmund kept talking. "The young woman in question was someone I cared for deeply. Our relationship was complicated by her family circumstances, yes. But I have only ever wanted to protect her and the children she is carrying. My children." He paused for effect, looking directly into the camera. "I am simply a father who wants access to his own family."

I felt my stomach turn.

"He is calling it a relationship," I said.

"Lena," Ghost said.

"He is calling what he did a relationship," I said again, louder.

The interviewer asked something about the criminal allegations.

"Allegations," Edmund said, with a small disbelieving laugh. "I have been the target of a coordinated attack by a criminal motorcycle gang holding a vulnerable young woman against her will. I understand people want a simple story. A villain. But the truth is rarely that simple."

Axel turned off the television.

The kitchen was silent.

"He just called me vulnerable and held against my will on national television," I said.

"Yes," Ghost said.

"While saying he wants access to his own family like he is some wronged father."

"Yes," Ghost said again.

I sat down hard at the table. The babies shifted, restless, like they could feel my pulse spike. "This is going to work on some people," I said. "Some people are going to watch that and believe him."

"Some people will," David said quietly from the doorway. "It always works on some people. That is how he has survived this long. He does not need everyone to believe him. He only needs enough doubt to slow things down."

"Then we do not let it slow things down," I said.

Ghost looked at me. "What do you want to do."

I thought about it. Really thought, not just reacted. "I want to respond," I said. "Not with anger. Not by matching his performance. I want to tell the truth plainly and let people compare the two versions side by side."

"You already did an interview," Axel said. "Weeks ago."

"This is different," I said. "That interview was about me running. This is about him lying directly to people's faces about what he did. I want to answer that specifically."

Ghost was quiet for a moment, studying me. "Helen will want to review anything you say before it goes out."

"Fine," I said. "But I am doing it."

He nodded slowly. "Then we do it properly."

We filmed the response in the compound's small back office two hours later.

No professional crew. Just Axel holding a phone steady on a stand and Rook adjusting the lighting because apparently Rook knew about lighting, which surprised no one more than Axel, who kept asking him how he knew that and getting no answer.

I sat at the desk and looked at the camera and thought about Edmund's voice saying I cared for her deeply.

Then I started talking.

"Edmund Hale said today that our relationship was complicated by family circumstances," I said. "I want to clarify what that complication actually was. My parents owed him money. He offered to erase that debt in exchange for me. I was twenty two years old. I had never had a real conversation with him before the engagement was announced. I met him three times before my wedding day."

I paused. Kept my voice steady.

"He said he has never acted outside the bounds of consent. I want to be specific about something I have not said publicly before. Three months before the wedding, at a dinner arranged by my parents, Edmund Hale cornered me in a hallway in his home while everyone else had gone to get drinks. I did not consent to anything that happened in that hallway. I have not spoken about it until now because I was ashamed, and because I did not think anyone would believe a twenty two year old over a man with his money and his reach."

I looked directly into the camera.

"I am not ashamed anymore."

I let that sit for a second.

"He called the men who took me in a criminal gang holding me against my will. I want to be clear about this too. I asked them to take me. I told them I would do anything if they got me away from that church. They have never once asked anything of me that I did not give freely. I am not being held anywhere. I am exactly where I chose to be."

I stopped. Looked at Axel behind the camera. Then back at the lens.

"He says he wants access to his own family. I will let the courts and the evidence speak to what kind of access a man like Edmund Hale deserves to anything. But I will say this. Family is not something you purchase. It is something you build with people who choose you and who you choose back. I have that now. He never did, and money was never going to buy it for him."

I nodded once, signaling I was done.

Axel lowered the phone slowly.

The room was quiet.

"That was good," Rook said.

"That was better than good," Axel said.

Ghost had been standing near the door the entire time, arms crossed, watching. He did not say anything immediately. He crossed the room and crouched slightly so he was at eye level with me where I sat.

"You did not flinch once," he said.

"I am done flinching," I said.

He looked at me for a long moment. Then he said, "Send it to Helen. If she approves, it goes out tonight.

Helen approved it in eleven minutes.

It went out at six that evening.

By eight it had more views than Edmund's interview.

By ten Axel was reading me comments out loud despite my repeated requests for him to stop, most of them some version of the public believing me completely and several of them noting that Edmund's interview now looked, in light of my response, exactly like what it was.

A performance.

Mine was not a performance.

That was the difference, and apparently it showed.