by Marie James
“You had six,” I correct, “and you were drinking absinthe. I don’t know how you can even feel your legs.”
“I can’t.” She giggles, stomping her foot on the ground. Her laughter fades away when I reach into the waistband of her yoga pants. “Don’t.”
“Baby, you need a shower.”
“If I get naked, you’re gonna want to fuck me.”
I sigh. “I want to fuck you with your clothes on, too, but you’ve gotten sick, and I’m not here to take advantage.”
“First time for everything,” she whispers, but it’s loud enough for me to hear.
Her flip-flops go flying as I push the clothes on her bottom half to the floor, and surprisingly she lifts her arms when I reach for the hem of her tank top.
Do not lick her nipples. Do not lick her nipples.
“Hold on,” I tell her as I direct her hands to the towel bar. “Let me get my clothes off.”
I’m out of my clothes in seconds, not caring that my cut slides off the counter and falls to the floor. My father would cut my nuts off if he were alive to see it. I smile at the disobedience as I direct Candi into the small shower.
“The shower back at the house is much better than this one,” I remind her as if it makes a fucking difference.
“This is heaven.” Her head tilts back, the water cascading over her head.
“Let me help you.” With one hand wrapped around her waist, I focus on getting her hair out of the knot it’s in on top of her head.
“You’re hard,” she pants as I step close enough to pin her to the wall.
Her hair requires both hands to get loose, and it’s the only thing I can think about right now. If I let my mind wander down south and how fucking good it feels for my length to be pressing into her stomach, we’ll never get out of here.
“I’m always hard around you.”
“Not just for me,” she spits. “For every woman.”
Her hair falls as I pull the elastic band from it. Pushing it out of her face so I can see her eyes, I wait, looking down at her until she manages to focus on me.
“For you,” I repeat.
“This is gonna suck tomorrow.”
Fuck she’s already having regrets, and I don’t plan to even fuck her tonight. Tomorrow morning on the other hand…
I play it cool, redirecting her and praying she forgets that she hates me. “Getting sick tonight will keep the hangover from being so bad tomorrow.”
“Not the hangover,” she sighs as the water trickles down her head, rejoicing in it hitting everywhere now that her hair is down. “You don’t have conditioner. My hair is going to be a wreck tomorrow.”
“Sorry, baby.” I peck a kiss to her cheek and reach for the shampoo. “I’ll get some stocked immediately.”
“Don’t do me any favors,” she murmurs, but she’s leaning into me a second later as I massage shampoo into her scalp.
“Feel good?”
“I wish you would leave me alone.”
“We haven’t talked in days,” I remind her.
“You’re everywhere.”
“Like a rash.” I smile and tilt her head back under the water to rinse.
“Like fucking herpes.”
Her words pull a quick smile from me. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Liar.” She rests her head against my chest. “Everyone leaves me.”
Me too, baby, me too.
The rest of the shower and drying off are uneventful. She looks better in my shirt than I ever could’ve imagined, as it flirts with her thighs.
After only a few minutes of bickering about where she’s going to sleep, I finally manage to convince her that against my chest and in my arms is the best place for her considering the amount of alcohol she drank tonight.
“I’ve missed this,” I confess against her damp hair.
“You can have any girl out there.”
I don’t bother correcting her because it’s true. The difference has nothing to do with what I can have and everything to do with what I want.
“You could’ve just fucked me and left me alone,” she continues when I don’t respond. “You told me I was safe here.”
“You are safe, baby.” I hold her tighter.
“I’m not safe,” she argues. “I’ve been treated poorly before coming here, but making me fall in love with you was the most brutal thing anyone has ever done to me.”
Silent tears wet my chest.
“How am I safe? Living like this is impossible.”
I don’t answer her. I can’t. Words are impossible right now.
Her soft breaths even out, letting me know that she’s fallen asleep.
My heart aches as it comes apart in my chest. I can’t keep her. She was never mine to possess. Now that the heat is off her with the fire in Andover, I have no sane reason to keep her here.
I close my eyes, resigned with knowing I have to let her go, and that sucks because I didn’t start living until she walked into this clubhouse.
Happiness isn’t a possibility for a monster like me.
Better to let her leave before she discovers just how deep my evil roots actually go.
Chapter 36
Candi
I could sleep all damn day, but the throbbing in my head forces my eyes open only to squint again at the bright sun filtering into the room.
“Why is it so fucking bright in here,” I grumble.
Aside from my rumpled self, the bed is empty. I’m not surprised. Leaving me alone seems to be Lynch’s thing. Heaven fucking forbid I wake up in his arms, lips touching the top of my head as he repeats the things he said last night while I’m sober. I can’t remember the specifics, but I know he was sweet, attentive, and there for me when I was too intoxicated to help myself.
I wince as I roll out of bed. My stomach muscles are tight, no doubt from the heaving I did in front of him last night. Cringing at the memory, I stumble into the bathroom, stripping out of his shirt and climbing right back into the shower. He’s not here to wash me. His hands aren’t gliding over my soap-covered skin, and it makes me miss his touch. It makes me feel a lot of things I shouldn’t even consider, like why I continue to gravitate toward him when all he does is shove me away.
In an effort to shove all of that shit down where it belongs, I rush through my shower and dry off just as fast. Putting my clothes from last night back on is less than ideal, but I’ll be damned if I walk out of here in something belonging to him. I hold my head high as I open the door into the hallway and make my way toward the back door. The walk of shame was made for whores, and since that’s exactly how I feel even though I didn’t sleep with Lynch last night, I own it.
I only make it to the kitchen before rough hands grab me from behind.
I scream, genuinely terrified for the very first time since I arrived. I’d always wondered when one of Lynch’s men would snap and lose control over themselves. Seems like today is that day.
“What are you doing?” I ask, slightly relieved when my captor spins me around to face him. TJ is glaring down at me, but considering I’m Molly’s best friend, I doubt he’ll be the one to hurt me. That doubt begins to fade the second he opens his mouth.
“Prez wants you downstairs.”
My lips turn down. “There isn’t a downstairs.”
A sinister smile paints his lips, and I know immediately what he’s talking about.
The basement.
I’ve heard whispers about that damn place, and it’s nowhere I want to be. My heart races in a frantic tattoo as my fight or flight kicks in. Anticipating my attempt to escape, TJ clutches me tighter, a low rumble emitting from his throat. It sounds like a warning, or maybe a challenge like he’d love nothing better than to give chase if I bolt from him.
“Where do you think you’re going?” he asks instead, never giving me the opportunity to slip away.
The barely controlled rage and evil in his voice is a contradiction to the TJ I thought I knew. The man who kisses his s
ister’s temple each time he sees her, the man who jokes incessantly, like life is nothing more than a playground is nowhere to be found. He’s been replaced with a man that haunts every woman’s nightmares, the man women run from before they can even see him, as if his evil presence can be felt from miles away.
“I don’t w-want to go down t-there.” My eyes plead with him to let me go as a million scenarios fog my brain. “Tell Lynch to come up here.”
“Oh, Sweet-Tart.” His punishing grip releases one arm so his fingers can brush my damp hair from the side of my face. “Your blood on his hands will kill him.”
He looks into my eyes, searching them as if there’s something I can say, something I can confess that will change the direction things are going.
“There’s nothing worse than betrayal.” He sighs, resigned as he turns me in the direction of the back door. I continue to fight him as he walks us to the door and outside. “We always knew a piece of pussy would make this club fall. We just never thought it would happen so soon.”
“I-I don’t k-know what y-you’re talking about.” The tremble in my voice is impossible to hide.
“Why are you so scared then?” His voice is a challenge in my ear as he reaches for the knob on the basement door.
I dig my feet in hard, but my cheap flip-flops are no match to his strength. I lose them in the struggle to avoid being pushed through the door. “I-I’ve h-heard about w-what happens down there. Please don’t.”
He shakes me again, so hard it stuns me enough he’s able to push me through the doorway. Darkness wraps around us like a living, breathing thing. Stale air hits my nose, and it’s almost enough to make me puke again. My stomach twists and turns, knotting and clenching relentlessly.
I slip more than once as TJ forces me to descend the stairs with rough shoves to my back. They creak under our weight, the rough wood painful against the bare soles of my feet. How I’m concerned about splinters when there are more treacherous things at play right now is beyond me.
“Those stories?” TJ snips in my ear. “Did you happen to tell that information to your d—”
“Dad?” I hiss when my eyes adjust to the single light at the bottom of the stairs. It casts very little around the room, giving it a sinister glow so ominous the stains and shadows seem to come alive.
I gasp at the sight of my father, beaten and bloody, standing on a wobbly chair with a thick rope wrapped around his throat. He’s surrounded by a semi-circle of leather-wearing men. Each one of them is staring in my direction with such hatred in their eyes, I feel as if my skin is covered in spiders. Ronan, standing against the far back wall, is the only one who looks like he might be mildly uncomfortable.
“W-what’s going on?” I ask when my eyes find Lynch’s.
Lynch.
The rope.
What an inopportune time to put two and fucking two together.
He hangs people. The rope around my father’s neck is purposeful. He won’t walk out of here alive, and neither will I.
“You tell me,” he insists, his words emotionless.
Just like the transformation upstairs with TJ, I realize I don’t know this man either. This isn’t the man who held me against his chest last night and promised he wasn’t going anywhere. This isn’t the man who let the shutters slip away from his guarded heart when he looked me in the eye as he claimed my body for the first time.
I don’t want to know this man. I want nothing to do with him.
“I didn’t do anything,” I vow.
It’s not the whole damn truth, because I should’ve told him what happened with my father, but to my credit, he was gone when we got back.
TJ shakes me, forcing my head to snap back and forth on my shoulders so hard my teeth clack together. Lynch flexes his hands at his side. I focus on that. On second look, he’s not indifferent. He’s broken…but resigned. He’s already made his mind up. Just like TJ confessed in the kitchen, hurting me will kill him, but it won’t stop it from happening.
“You’re as useless as your fucking mother,” my dad spits, but I keep my focus on Lynch. He’s not saying anything I haven’t heard before. His words barely register anymore. The father I wanted to love, the father I thought I’d had the early years of my childhood, never actually existed.
Lynch is the only one who can make a difference here. His word is law. He’s the only one who can change the direction of today’s events. Pleading with anyone else won’t make a bit of difference.
“This isn’t you then?” Lynch tosses down a stack of pictures Briar just handed him.
I didn’t notice Briar until now, but that fucking coward won’t even look my way. As if he’s the only one with morals while every other Ravens Ruin member glares at me with repulsion. He may not agree with what’s going on, but he won’t try to stop it either. His loyalty is with his club.
My eyes dart down, taking in the black and white photos of me walking out of the mall bathroom, and my father taking the same route a few minutes later.
I see the sadness in my eyes in one, only to see my resilience lock into place in the next. I didn’t want to upset Molly, and honestly, at that moment, I didn’t want Smalls to hurt my dad.
“You want me to believe it was pure coincidence that you ended up at Andover with Molly?” The calm, lack of emotion in his voice terrifies me. “Your dad has been after my club for the last twenty-five years, and I’m just supposed to accept that you’re here by chance?”
“He killed my fucking mother!” TJ roars in my ear loud enough to make me shrink away from him as much as I’m able.
“Bullshit,” my dad argues. “I didn’t pull that fucking trigger.”
I almost laugh at the ridiculousness of his words. He’s strung up in a fucking basement in the middle of the Ravens Ruin compound, and he’s arguing semantics? Molly mentioned her mother’s death before but only spoke of her being gone and how she was too young to remember much. She never went into details. I’d assumed it was a car accident or cancer. Before coming to the clubhouse, I presumed that’s how most people died too young. Now I know differently.
“I-I was p-planted,” I try to explain. The waver in my voice makes me think I’m lying myself. There’s no way anyone in this room is going to believe me. Their minds were made up long before TJ shoved me down here, but I can’t not try. I don’t want to die, but especially not for something I’m not guilty of. “I didn’t know anything about it until then, until my dad showed up and told me to get something on the club.”
I tap my foot on one of the pictures since TJ still has a death grip on my arms. I can’t worry about bruises since they won’t matter soon.
“So you’ve only been collecting intel for the last week and a half?”
“What?” My eyes meet Lynch’s. “No. I wouldn’t do that.”
The brokenness I saw on his face has faded away. He doesn’t believe me. I wouldn’t believe me either. The evidence is pretty damning.
“I tried to leave,” I remind him. “You wouldn’t let me.”
TJ releases one of my arms, only to grab a chunk of my hair. He snaps my head back so hard my teeth dig into my bottom lip. The taste of blood fills my mouth a second later.
“We’re going to remedy that today,” TJ hisses in my ear.
Please let it be painless, I pray, knowing that my fate is already sealed.
Chapter 37
Lynch
“Let her go!” I roar when I see Candi’s tongue swipe her lips, leaving a trail of blood behind.
“Don’t go soft over a piece of pussy,” TJ counters with a chuckle I haven’t heard in years. His thirst for blood has grown over recent years, and the tone of his voice makes even me nervous.
“Dad always let the traitors explain,” I barter. Candi cringes at the title.
I know his knife is on his hip, right where it always is. In a split second, I could go from holding all the power in this room to being the one on my knees begging for my life. My baby brother is volatile, to s
ay the least.
“She’s a whore, not a club member,” TJ argues. “The patch on those traitors’ backs is the only thing that has ever afforded them the luxury to explain. She doesn’t deserve another second alive for betraying us.”
“Let. Her. Go.”
To my surprise, TJ releases his brutal hold on her. The second she’s steady, her eyes find mine again. She’s silently begging me to save her, to not let my men tear her apart. If only she knew how little control I have over this situation. If only she knew the sacrifice I’ll make once her betrayal is avenged.
“How easy was this for you?” I ask instead. Tears fill her eyes, pooling on her dark lashes. “How disgusted you must have been last night telling me that you loved me.”
“Fucking whore,” Dietrich Miller spits behind me.
Spinning around, I sucker punch him in the nose so hard he almost falls off the stool. I stare, watching expectantly as he teeters before steadying himself. I expect to turn around and see her afraid for her dad, but her eyes are still on mine. She doesn’t spare him a glance. There’s something to that. Something thrilling about it that makes the angry tiger in me want to prove to him just how much control I have over her body, how it sings when I get close. Would she object if I stripped her bare and fucked her right in front of her dad? It may be enough to send the poor fucker leaping from the chair without one of us having to kick it out from underneath him.
“I didn’t say those things. I never would.”
Her denial rips me from the fantasy that’s only moments away from coming to fruition.
“Because it would be a lie?” My fists clench at my sides.
Her head drops, and her shoulders tremble with sobs. I almost reach for her, almost stretch out my hand to comfort her the way I did last night when she was sick.
“Because loving you is the only secret I have.” She tilts her tear-stained eyes in my direction. “Please do more research before you do this.”
I stand, staring at her for a lifetime without saying a word. Is it her hold on me, the tangled web I’ve been caught up in, or is it sincerity in her eyes? I’m too fucking emotionally damaged from the shit I’ve dealt with from birth to distinguish the difference. Whenever I’ve had these questions in the past, I go with instinct, seek and destroy, maim and kill, but this time I pause. Waiting for what? A divine intervention? A miraculous change in the evidence Hornet provided this morning before the sun even came up?
