Because of me.
He was my brother and I loved him. We had a bond that sometimes stretched itself taut, but never had a chance at breaking. And because I loved him, it made hurting him that much harder.
Knowing the hurt was necessary didn’t make it feel like I was stabbing my own heart any less.
My eyes stung but I begged the tears to remain at bay. “I’m not a job,” I said. He flinched like I’d struck him and turned his face away. But he didn’t step out of my hold. “And while I’ll always be your baby sister—even when we’re both old and grumpy, sitting in rocking chairs and complaining about kids being too loud—I’m also a woman in my own right. I’ve spent enough time living someone else’s life. I want my own, Law. I want to pay my own bills. I want to strive for success and risk failure. I want to wake up every morning to a new day and breathe air that hasn’t been recycled through this bubble I’ve been trapped in.”
“I never meant to-”
“I know,” I told him softly. “Of course I know. But don’t you always tell your clients that there’s no arguing with the facts? I can’t live my whole life in your shadow.” God, the tennis ball in my throat was putting in work. “That’s not what she would’ve wanted.” Lawson sighed, big body deflating when the truth poked a hole in him. “The sun rises again and again, and I want to see it for myself. Even if it burns.”
He moved suddenly, crushing me against his chest. I wrapped my arms around his waist and soaked in his strength, taking it for my own. I felt him press his lips to the crown of my head. “I shouldn’t have taught you everything I know about winning an argument,” he complained.
Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Don’t cry.
“It’s weird that you’re acting like this was ever an argument in the first place.” My voice only wavered a miniscule amount while I spoke into his shirt. He heard it anyway, and his arms tightened briefly before he let me go and stepped back, blinking a little too fast for it to be casual.
“I’ll be expecting regular updates,” he said, affecting the voice he usually reserved for judges. It was the no-nonsense, listen to me when I’m speaking, voice. “Text, call, email. Every day, no exceptions. I’ll even allow those silly gifs you’re so fond of.”
“You got it.” My sloppy salute was intentional, and the small smile that accompanied it was real enough to beat back the sadness still lurking around the corner.
This is it.
I opened the car door and sank into the well-worn seat, breathing deeply of the peach-scented spray I used. The engine turned over with ease, and its quiet rumble filled me with apprehension and impatience in equal measure. I rubbed my hands together then rolled the window down. Law was still standing there, looking frustrated.
“Don’t get in any trouble,” he called to me. I lifted my hand in an acknowledging wave as I pulled out onto the street.
I wasn’t aware that I was holding my breath until I turned the corner and he disappeared from sight, along with our home. Then I released a ragged exhale and pulled another one in that filled my system with steadily building excitement. I was leaving. Finally.
God. Finally!
I smiled when I pulled onto the highway, turning the volume of the pop music on the radio up painfully loud.
A mile in, my shades were on and I was singing along without a care in the world but the blue sky stretching towards my destination.
Trouble?
Law knew better than anyone that I’d left those days behind me. Every girl was entitled to pursuing one bad boy in their life, and I’d gotten mine out of my system years ago.
Besides, despite the well-known men and women who called it home, Oakdale was one of the safest towns in the state. So what it was an open secret that it was controlled by a notorious biker gang? I’d received a surprisingly cordial visit from a giant-sized blonde, confirming the one-time flower shop sitting right near the main plaza, tucked between a tattoo studio on one side and an incense store on the other, was mine to rent.
A visit I most certainly hadn’t told my brother about. Obviously. Like, duh. He got on my nerves, but I didn’t want him to have an aneurysm.
Other than that, the only indication they were around was the sound of growling motorcycles going up and down the streets.
Trouble? Puh-lease.
I chuckled to myself, still swaying to the music.
What kind of trouble could possibly drop into a smoothie shop of all places?
Chapter Two
Tone
Feels good to be home.
My pace was even. My route familiar. I could've closed my eyes and followed the map of my mind through the woods. But today, I wanted to take it all in.
Branches and leaves snapping beneath my boots with each step.
The smell of pine floating through the air, pushed along on a chilling breeze that had me hunkering deeper into my coat.
Evergreens stretching endlessly into a sky filled with clouds of purple and gold, painted by the first rays of the sun rising over the horizon.
She would've killed for this view.
Grief put its bony hands on my shoulders, and despite the strength packed in my tall frame, I knew better than to waste energy trying to shrug off those oppressive limbs.
I learned a lot about grief in the last several years. Way more than I ever fucking wanted to, that's for sure. But life was funny like that.
You didn't get an option to pick and choose what lessons it was going to teach you, or how harsh those lessons might be.
It was probably my bias speaking, but grief was the cruelest of them all.
I'd heard all the talks about the stages.
Denial.
Anger.
Bargaining.
Depression.
Acceptance.
They had it right on the first four. But the last one? Bullshit and lies wrapped in a pretty bow. Like the idea that some fat asshole sneaks into the house every Christmas and leaves gifts behind. A complete and utter fucking joke.
My hands curled into tight fists in my pockets and I forced them to release. Five years ago, I would've surrendered to the violent urges crawling over my skin without a fight. Everything within arm’s reach would've been a target. But I wasn't the same man I was then.
I’d promised not to be.
So instead of beating my fists into the rough bark of a tree until they were bloody and broken, I only released a heavy exhale that hung in a visible cloud around my face.
And if I stopped and closed my eyes, picturing her face for a moment, well, there was no one around to call me on it, was there?
When I opened my eyes and resumed my hike, I was grateful for the reminder that I was no longer back in Charlotte.
I had nothing against the city itself. Spending the last couple of months there while my sister in arms did battle against herself and the demons of her past had been a nice change of pace.
And a victorious one at that.
I didn't know the entire history between her and the Cartel, but I didn't need to either. The once-silent Sinner had blown into town like a knife-wielding ghost, destabilized one of the state's most pervasive criminal organizations, and had then been resurrected by a calculating businessman who wielded his intellect like a sledgehammer.
There was life in her eyes again.
Happiness.
And while I was happy for her in return, I’d revealed a little too much in my effort to make sure she gave the thing she had with Carlos a fair chance.
Sooner or later, she was going to ask with more than questioning looks, so I’d dipped once things settled down there.
That was a conversation I wanted to have...never.
I pushed through a dense patch of thicket and paused, feeling skeletal fingers dig into my shoulders. There were no landmarks. Nothing to set this patch of forest apart from any other.
But I knew.
I always knew and I always would.
This ten by ten stretch of land with its green
trees and carpet of pine needles was branded onto my soul, and it was also where my constant companion had the greatest hold on me.
I crouched in the makeshift bed created by the pine trees and let it all crash down on me once more.
Denial.
Anger.
Bargaining.
Depression.
They came one after another, slamming into the organ in my chest that bled with every impact.
She can't be gone.
How dare life take her from me?
I would give anything to have her back.
What was the point of going on without her?
But I knew.
I always did.
Because I promised.
I grabbed a pinecone and held it tight in my fist, letting the sharp ends dig into my flesh.
The pain brought me to the present.
To the now.
To life without her.
“Happy New Year, Kit-Kat,” I said softly, voice almost lost to the wind.
The talons I could never escape tunneled deeper, and shards of agony hit my bloodstream before spreading through me.
I felt my face crumple in a pained grimace, and I let it. There were no secrets between us in life. And I knew that even in death, she would tear into my hide if I tried to keep something from her.
“Figure I should go ahead and apologize for missing Christmas, but it was for a good cause.”
I paused for reasons unknown to me. There was no one around for miles. So unless the birds were about to respond, I was still talking to myself.
But in that heavy pause, I could almost hear her snort of disbelief.
See the caramel skin around her eyes tightening in a dubious squint.
Smell the shea butter on her hair as she leaned closer, getting right in my face for making an excuse.
“Nathaniel Reese Glen,” she would've said. “What am I gonna do with you?”
Emotion welled at the back of my throat and stuck there. A lump refusing to be swallowed down.
“You remember Sly, right?” I'd told her about every member of my makeshift family by now, although they had become the only family that mattered. It was part of what I'd promised. “The one who kept robbing me at darts before Tex let it slip that she took to sharp objects like a fish to water? She went and got herself a man now. He's a bit full of himself, but I don't mind him.”
“He looks at her the way I looked at you. Like she hung the stars in the sky and made them beautiful.” My eyes burned. I sniffed hard, and then again. The cold stung my nose and lungs, but no moisture fell. “They're completely lost in each other, so I had to hold the fort down for a bit. I'm back now, though.”
Another pause while I waited for a voice I would never hear again.
“Just to get it out there, I'm still pissed at you.”
And I was.
Anger?
No, anger could never do it justice.
Even rage fell short.
“You promised,” I whispered, voice rough from being dragged through the broken glass in my throat. “You fucking promised. You're supposed to be here, damn it.”
Red droplets fell in front of me, staining the needles. Prying my fingers from the pinecone took ages, and I grunted when it finally dropped, looking dipped in red. My fingers were numb and bloody, but I barely felt them over the pain emanating from the black hole in my chest.
“You pushed me into their path,” I complained, staring at the palm of my hand.
My phone rang, shattering the quiet into fragments too small to be repaired.
I sighed, knowing one way or another this stolen moment was gone and not coming back.
Life never knew when to take a fucking hint.
It didn't care about who, what, or why.
It just...was.
Until it wasn't.
I grabbed the phone from my jacket pocket and flicked my thumb across the screen, holding it up to my ear.
“Yeah?” My voice emerged cool and collected, any traces of pain well-hidden the moment the outside world had intruded on this place.
“Meet me at the club,” the man on the other end ordered in an annoyed rumble.
Then he hung up.
Something close to amusement tiptoed its way across my brain.
Creed was the ruthless president of the Seven Sinners, and one mean son of a bitch.
I was about as eager to go to him as a man being sent to the gladiator pits when the only monster left on the ballot was a fucking hydra.
And still, I would go.
There was no telling what he would ask of me. No questions about whether or not I would agree to whatever it was.
No matter how much I wanted to lay down right here and never get up again, that wasn't in the cards. I would take all my pain, choke it down, and endure.
Because I promised her I would.
Knees protesting, I got to my feet and stared down at the bloody pinecone. It was fitting that it would be left here.
What did one more piece of me matter?
The only important part of my life had left me at the same moment she took her last breath right below these very trees.
“Ride or die,” I said to the wind. “I did my part. What about you, Kit-Kat? What the fuck happened to your end of the bargain?”
Legs that didn't feel like my own carried me back the way I'd come. Towards civilization. Towards a life I would've gladly traded if it meant she was above ground instead of me.
Acceptance?
Yeah. Fucking. Right.
Acceptance was nowhere to be found.
There was no such thing as accepting that your other half just...wasn't there when you reached for them.
That the same girl whose braids you pulled when you were kids-
Whose hand you held when nothing else felt solid-
Whose lips you kissed when you took that first terrifying plunge from friends and fell towards something so much more-
That person—my person—was gone.
And with her, all the things I would never have again.
I would never hear her laugh.
Never see her smile.
Never hold her in my arms.
Never call her names.
Never dance with her.
Cry with her.
Love with her.
Gone.
Gone.
Gone.
By the time I left the shelter of the trees and spotted my black and chrome Harley on the side of the road, the pressure hovering over my shoulders was almost bearable.
Almost.
I swung a leg over the intimidating beast, hands finding familiar holds as I brought it to life with a roar, shaking my head at the irony of my situation.
If there was a God, he was one cruel motherfucker and he never got tired of a good laugh at my expense. Why else would he force my path to align with men and women who were just like the old me? Angry and at war with the world around them.
They each had something they could point their will at. A living weapon waiting for the squeeze of a trigger.
Me?
I had nothing.
She hadn’t been stolen from me by men I could hunt and bring to their knees.
There were no more lurking figures in my past, waiting for the swift hand of judgment.
I had no ties to any place I wanted to see burned to the ground and the ashes scattered.
She’d been robbed of time by a fucking defect in the same perfect heart that had beaten right beside mine countless nights.
Until it didn’t.
Until it slowed...and slowed...and stopped.
The engine beneath me rumbled, eager to be let loose.
And so I went.
A lie in my smile and a promise etched into my soul.
Chapter Three
Tone
Axle was waiting on me outside the towering log cabin that acted as the Sinner's clubhouse.
The place was two stories of smooth wood and country
living, built big enough to comfortably house the six men and one woman who used to call this place home.
It was still strange as hell, pulling up and not seeing multiple vehicles side by side in the huge driveway. Instead, there were only three.
Creed’s black bike was such an intense shade of midnight the sun could barely touch it. Texas had painted his in a gray and blue diamond pattern that made it hard to look at. The odd man out was the forest green, four-door sedan.
I frowned. There was nothing wrong with my eyesight. That was Caitlin's color. But I definitely wasn't looking at the speedy little crotch rocket Creed had gotten her not long after they got together.
Strange.
I killed the engine and threw my kickstand down before standing. Shaking my head at Axle when he came walking over, sweeping a hand through his wavy, dark-blonde hair.
There was something wrong with the blue-eyed Sinner. Something worse than the lack of a living, beating heart inside his chest. There had to be.
How else was he stomping around in fucking short sleeves and jeans and nothing else to keep him warm other than the clove cigarette cradled between his fingers?
“You got the call too?” he asked, taking a quick drag. Watching him turn his head to the side so as not to exhale the cloud right in my face was amusing as shit.
I knew for a fact that he didn’t actually give a damn whether or not the smoke bothered me. I wasn’t joking when I said the guy had no heart.
Never in my life would I forget watching him slam his front door closed right in the faces of a couple of girl scouts, cookies and all. Actual real-life girl scouts. With those drug-laced cookies I could eat a whole box of in one sitting.
One of them had started crying on the other side of the door and Axle wiped his palm on his jeans like he was worried about catching the emotion through a slab of solid wood.
The man was cold to the bone and rude, or barely tolerate, of the rest of the world.
Other than me.
Sly and several others thought he was some kind of psycho with the switch for his humanity flipped into the off position, but I didn’t buy it. It took a liar to know a liar. And his outward irreverence was, at least in part, a lie.
I didn’t believe that he felt nothing. What I did believe was that he just didn’t care. About anything.
Tempted by a Sinner (Seven Sinners Book 4) Page 2
