Point of Redemption

by Stacey Lynn

Faith looked at Cain, the barrel of the gun trembling in her grip. “You beat me,” she said. “You loaded my mom with drugs so you could keep her and you let men use my body so you could have your way with me and her?”

  My jaw tightened against her shoulder as I took in her words. I knew the strength it took for her to finally confront Cain, but blood on Faith’s hands was the last thing she needed.

  “Give me the gun, Faith,” I whispered into her ear. My grip on her chest loosened as my hands gently brushed against her skin.

  Her shoulders tightened and she flinched away from me.

  Six more large steps and Cain would be out that door. At least that’s what he thought. He didn’t know six men were outside, guns cocked, loaded, and waiting for him.

  Any of the brothers taking him out would be better than Faith doing it.

  “Let him go,” I told her quietly. “Men are outside and they’ll take care of him.”

  She shook her head.

  “No,” she clipped. I wanted to pull her chin to face me and stare directly into her eyes. The coolness of the words told me that the fucking light that had been in her eyes had disappeared again. “He fucked me. He beat me.”

  She repeated the words, increasing in volume and speed, until her hand was shaking so hard she could barely get the words out, much less hold the gun.

  “Faith,” I warned her. I pulled back, intent on reaching for her gun, when she yanked it from me.

  Cain took that small moment, that small mistake, to turn and run.

  “No!” Faith’s shout was barely heard over the discharge of the gun.

  Cain ducked and his hands flew over his head as he dropped to his knees.

  Footsteps pounded outside right before two doors flung open and Faith’s house was overrun with men.

  “You fucking shot me!” Cain shouted, his hand wrapped around the back of his knee. His fingers were coated in blood as it poured out of him.

  I turned to Faith, who still stared directly at Cain. Smoke bellowed gently out of the barrel of the gun, a complete contradiction to Faith’s tight expression and trembling fingers. But still, she held the gun on Cain.

  She didn’t appear to see anyone, no recognition on her face that she knew where she was or knew anyone else in the room.

  Slowly, so I didn’t startle her, I reached out with one finger and brushed a lock of her hair off her cheek and pressed it behind her ear. She flinched slightly.

  “Faith,” I whispered. She flinched again, but I knew she heard me, so I took a small step toward her, coming close enough where I could reach out and smoothly slide the gun from her hands. “Let the men handle the rest.”

  She didn’t move for several breaths. My eyes flashed to Daemon and Jaden as they stood inside the front door, their guns on Cain, and Daemon’s eyes narrowed on mine in concern.

  “I’m going to take the gun,” I told Faith. She nodded once, but didn’t move. I slid my hand down her arm, comforting her, and alerting her to my presence and movements. As soon as I covered her hand with both of mine, her fingers loosened on the trigger. Slowly, each of her fingers uncurled from the handle of the gun until it fell into my hands.

  I flicked the safety on and stashed it in the back of my jeans.

  “You okay?” I asked her as I shifted so I was standing in front of her. Cain writhed on the ground, moaning about his knee, and I wanted to block her view. When I was in front of her, both of my hands went to her shoulders. She looked at me and through me simultaneously. The sparkle in her eyes was there, but diminished.

  “Hey,” I said, jostling her softly. She blinked at me, and finally, her eyes cleared and reality returned. “Let the men handle this, okay?”

  She licked her cracked lips. Her shoulders raised and fell under my hands as she took several deep breaths. I stood in front of her, squeezing her shoulders and offering her the most comforting look I could.

  By the way peace and color returned to Faith’s cheeks and eyes, it was enough.

  “My mom is upstairs. He took her out of the hospital somehow.”

  “We’ll take care of her.”

  Faith shook her head, looked around the room, and took in the six men who were there to protect her. “No… I don’t—” she swallowed, her eyebrows pulled in. I let her have the time to process everything that had happened while Cain groaned on the floor. “I don’t care what happens to her… kill her, too. Send her to rehab.” She shrugged under my grip, and I squeezed her tighter. She couldn’t mean that. The dead serious look she flashed me as I opened my mouth to tell her that silenced me before I spoke. “Kill her or send her away. I don’t care.”

  I nodded. Like hell Faith wanted her mom dead, but I wasn’t going to argue. “Okay. Let’s get you home, okay?”

  I wanted to kick my own ass as soon as Faith’s eyes darted around the living room, of the very home she’d grown up in. But it was no longer her home, and I watched her eyes soften as she realized the same thing. “Let’s go, then.”

  She spun around and headed out of the hallway, out the kitchen, and through the back door before I was quick enough to follow her. I took in the room, the men, and the asshole on the floor who still moaned like a pussy.

  “You heard her,” I said and raised one eyebrow at Daemon.

  “We got this.” He tilted his head toward the outside of the house. “Go see to Faith.”

  “You hear about her mom?”

  Daemon nodded. “We’ll figure it out. Go.” He waved his gun toward the back door, and I left with a thanks and a few shoulder claps on Jaden and Tripp’s shoulders as I headed out.

  I caught Faith standing in her front yard near Daemon’s truck with her head tilted up as she stared at the night sky. Dusk had settled as Daemon and I had hauled tail to get to her house as soon as Xbox tracked her cell phone. Now, the night was pitch black except for the stars that filled the sky.

  “How’d you know I was here?” Faith asked, her voice hollowed and gravelly.

  I stopped feet from her, not knowing if my presence would be unwelcome and hating the idea she wouldn’t want me around her. “Xbox tracked you when Liv called Daemon to tell him you and her were gun were gone.”

  “You got here quick,” she said. She dropped her head from the sky to her feet. Her hands wiped against the tight shorts she wore that barely covered her ass.

  “We were already heading back and weren’t that far away.”

  I rocked on my heels, uncertain as to what to do or what to say. Faith twisted her neck and looked at me over her shoulder. One side of her lips quirked. “Any reason you’re that far away?”

  It was the only thing I needed to hear. I was in front of her, my arms around her, and my hand holding onto the back of her neck. I pulled her to my chest before I could force out a breath.

  “I shot him,” she whispered against my shirt.

  “I know.” My eyes closed and my chest heaved slowly, afraid of how this would affect her. “Want to talk about what happened?”

  Her forehead brushed back and forth against my chest. She sniffed and blew out a breath against my shirt that shot a hot, searing heat straight to my chest and down to my dick. It wasn’t the time, but my body couldn’t contain its innate reactions to Faith being in my arms again.

  Safe.

  Her hands came up to my hips and she pushed away from me. It was slow and firm and I hesitated to let her go. I wanted to fucking haul her in my arms and to a bed where I could take my time and make sure she really was okay.

  She had shot someone. That shit messed with your head.

  But at her firm insistence, I let her go. My hands fell to my sides as she took a step back, but kept her hands on my hips.

  Slowly, she brought her eyes to mine. Her eyes darted back and forth between mine while I waited. For what, I didn’t quite know. “It felt good.”

  My eyebrows pulled in. I doubted her words, yet her calm expression and lack of freaking out said she spoke the truth. I gave her the benefit of the doubt
until I could see otherwise.

  I knew it would feel good had I been the one to shoot Cain.

  She looked back over her shoulder toward the house behind her. “What are they going to do to him?”

  “Kill him.”

  She nodded once before looking back at me. “Can we get out of here before that happens?”

  I reached out and tugged on the back of her neck with my palm. She tripped and face planted into my chest once again and there was no way in fuck I was letting her go this time.

  She handed me the keys to Daemon’s truck before I helped her inside.

  As I backed out of the driveway, Faith’s eyes stayed trained on the front door of her house. Her eyebrows pulled in and a crease ran down between them.

  “Hey,” I said, my hand covering her warm and toned thigh. “You okay?”

  “Yeah.” She paused and slowly tucked a small piece of hair behind her ear. “You told me to go home, but I don’t have one.”

  I squeezed her thigh tighter and stopped the truck. “Look at me.”

  She turned to me with such a lost expression, I wanted to go back inside and kick Cain’s ass and her mom’s because I knew it would make me feel better. Instead, I licked my lips, dying to put them on her, but for some reason, I needed the reassurance that whatever the fuck had happened to her with Cain hadn’t completely fucked her up.

  “We’ll make one together.”

  Her lips twitched. When her hand covered mine and squeezed tightly, I assumed it was the right thing to say.

  I shot a man.

  I shot a man who defiled me for years all for some depraved, perverted reason to use me as a way to seek his revenge on a dead man.

  As much as I tried, no matter how hard I squeezed my eyes to erase the images and words Cain had spoken earlier, they wouldn’t stop flipping through my mind in slow motion. As if constantly reconsidering what he said would have it make sense.

  It didn’t.

  And yet, even though I knew a sliver of remorse should have whispered into my conscience that what I had done was wrong—reprehensible—nothing could stop me from finding solace in the moment. I found peace in the cab of the rusted out SuperCab truck with Ryker’s hand on my thigh, humming to the rock tune filtering through the speakers.

  The truck’s headlights were the only thing that illuminated the driveway as we pulled in.

  I sucked in a breath, the peacefulness of the moment before was gone and replaced with a tingling in my fingers and arms.

  “Why are we here?”

  He eyed me warily as he pushed the shift into park. “You wanted to go home.”

  I stared at the house in front of me. It had practically been my second home growing up. Liv’s home. The home I knew she never wanted to return to, and the same home she had given Ryker the keys to only days before.

  For us.

  He jumped out of the truck. I frowned at the house, but at the same time, my hand opened the door and I slid to the cracked pavement.

  When I reached him at the front of the truck, my limbs and arms still tingling with uncertainty and nerves, I dragged my eyes to Ryker’s.

  “We can’t just go inside.”

  With his face angled down, I could barely see him in the darkness, but I didn’t miss the way his eyes crinkled. “It’s ours. Why not?”

  “Because,” I said, my eyes flickering between him and the front door. “It’s weird.”

  Ryker shrugged and pulled me up the sidewalk and to the door. The keys jingled in his hand while he found the right one. My breath hitched as he opened the door and smiled down at me.

  “Should I carry you over the threshold?” A mischievous grin tilted his lips as he wiggled his eyebrows.

  I shoved his shoulder with the palm of my hand and pushed him out of the way. “Don’t be stupid.”

  My breath caught in my throat as I entered the dark room. I only had to run my hand down the wall to my right and the entire room was completely illuminated in brightness. And yet, it seemed so empty at the same time.

  Everything from Liv’s childhood had been replaced. She had told me this when I asked her for certain if she wanted to give me the keys to her house, but she had simply said everything from her life there was gone anyway.

  She wasn’t wrong.

  “This is like, the ultimate man home.”

  I nodded at Ryker’s slow voice that rumbled behind me.

  My eyes took in everything as my body began to feel drained from the day’s events. “I know,” I said, my mouth opened wide and a large yawn escaped. I didn’t bother trying to hide it. “It’s so weird.”

  “We’ll make it ours,” he said and began directing me up the flight of stairs. The warmth of his hand on my lower back singed through my T-shirt and directly into my skin. I let him push me along, my feet feeling heaving and slower with every step as I trudged up the staircase and down the hall.

  I stopped when he led me directly into the master bedroom. All over the house, masculinity echoed in every corner and every wall and every furnishing. Dark browns and blacks and reds coupled with beer signs and motorcycle logos and artwork had lined the walls.

  But this room… it wasn’t what I expected.

  “I had Jules do this.” His breath in my ear elicited pleasured bumps along my hairline and the nape of my neck. The warm hand on my back grew hotter as he pushed me begrudgingly through the door. “I didn’t think you’d want to sleep in Bull’s old bed.”

  He had that right. But still, this didn’t explain the sheer silver colored drapes over a four-poster King Size bed. It didn’t explain the pale, greyish blue pillows and decadent bedcovers. And it certainly didn’t explain the majestic mahogany furniture that sat on both sides of the bed and one large dresser on the wall.

  “Do you like it?”

  My jaw dropped. I was unable to speak. He had rendered me speechless with his thoughtfulness, but also with his assumption that I would live there with him.

  I took a step away from him and instantly felt the loss of heat on my body. I shivered and crossed my arms as I turned to him, my head tilted to the side. “Isn’t this too soon? I mean, it’s too soon. It’s only been a week since we really started speaking again and so much has happened.”

  The more I rambled, the wider Ryker’s smile grew.

  “It’s too soon?” he asked as he took a step toward me. I stepped back and nodded. My fingers dug into the skin on my elbows because all I truly wanted to do was reach out, tug on his short black hair, and draw his lips to mine.

  But this was crazy.

  “You got Jules to do this?” I asked, ignoring his question as I took in the room. It was beautiful. Masculine and elegant at the same time. Completely romantic in all of it.

  I wandered to the bed, reached out, and ran my hand down the shimmery gray stripe in one of the half dozen pillows propped on the bed. Silk. It had to have cost a fortune.

  “Why would you do this?” I looked at Ryker over my shoulder. He padded toward me and sat on the edge of the bed.

  His hand snaked around my waist and pulled me to him until I was standing nestled between his thighs. The rough denim abraded the soft skin on my exposed thighs as he shifted me where he wanted me.

  A line appeared between his eyes. “You’re afraid of this. Why?”

  I looked back at the pillows. Elegant and soft. So… not me. “I don’t know. It’s fast.”

  My lip twitched, and I bit down on it. A thousand jumbled thoughts tumbled through my mind but none made enough sense to voice out loud. I couldn’t tell what they all were, just that nothing this good had ever happened to me before.

  It had always been Ryker. But as he sat before me, his hands loosely holding my hips, worry and fear appeared in his furrowed brow and tightened jaw.

  “It’s not that it’s not beautiful,” I told him. Because it was. I reached out with a finger and dragged it down his cheek and jaw before I stopped at his chin. Shrugging one shoulder, I let my hand fall to my sid
e.

  “Then what?”

  “Everything’s happening so fast,” I admitted. His reappearance in my life less than two months ago, being taken, being beaten, held by a mob family, my mom, Cain… my life was certainly not dull.

  Ryker gripped my hand in his and brought it to his lips. He pressed his lips gently against my knuckles, my palm, and then my inner wrists. He tightened his grip as I squirmed beneath his piercing, lustful gaze and the tickling warmth of his breath on my sensitive skin.

  “If I could go back five years and never leave, I would.”

  I nodded, a slow burn beginning in my throat. “I know.”

  “I thought we’d agreed we’ve wasted enough time apart.”

  “We did.”

  He tugged me forward, one hand wrapped around my waist, and we fell back onto the bed, Ryker beneath me, and we shifted so we were lying side by side.

  “So what’s the problem, then?” His hand ran through my hair and down the side of my body. His eyes followed his hand as he trailed my body over my clothes slowly as if he wanted to memorize every dip and curve.

  My hand ran through his own silky hair as I bit my bottom lip. “I’m afraid it won’t last,” I finally admitted.

  He rolled forward, capturing me beneath him and pulling me to him with an arm around my waist. I was pinned to the bed and I had been correct. The coverings were decadent and soft and incredibly comfortable. I wanted to sink into the bed with Ryker on top of me and never come out.

  “I’ll have to do everything I can then, I suppose,” he began with his nose almost touching mine. His breath ghosted across my skin as his eyes stayed trained on mine. He leaned forward until our lips were touching, brushing against mine as he spoke. “To prove that you have nothing to be afraid of anymore.”

  With my clothes from the day before thrown on, I padded my feet down the hallway and the stairs to the kitchen. I knew this house like it was the back of my hand, yet I still expected at some point for Cherry to pop around the corner with a warm smile on her or Liv’s dad, Bull, to be sitting in the recliner with a beer in his hand and the remote in his lap regardless of the time of day.