It’s a monumental task to get my tired lids to part, to take in the blurred scenery and try to make sense of it. Am I back in that bedroom again? I wonder, reaching out a hand and finding a warm male body sitting on the edge of the bed. I must be. And this is Grey.

The man squeezes my hand, and a hot thrill shoots through me, like a shock of adrenaline to the heart. I snap to, sitting up suddenly as the man withdraws his hand. It takes me several more blinks to bring the room into focus and realize that I’m in my grandmother’s old bedroom, the one that still smells like her perfume.

Though … this house hasn’t really been a home in a long, long time.

Instead, this is where the club buries the bodies they don’t want found. It may as well be a graveyard, a cursed place full of death and pain and misery. Underneath this house, there’s a sea of skeletons tumbled together in a mass grave.

I shiver and rub at my face with both hands. The motion makes the bandage on my shoulder pull, and I wince against the pain.

“Easy,” the man breathes as I drop my hands to my lap, realizing as I do that it isn’t Grey sitting there: it’s Crown. Crown. Fucking Crown. Born Calder Reid, ex-cop, Boy Scout among thieves, six foot five with auburn-highlighted brown hair that curls in such a sweet, endearing way that it almost tricks me. Almost.

“No lectures?” I manage to choke out, but then the coughing starts, and Crown is offering me a glass of water. I push it away, and he growls at me.

“When someone’s trying to help you, don’t fight it.”

He scoots closer to me, wraps a strong arm around my waist, and forces the water to my lips. He tilts the glass in just such a way that I’m forced to either drink it or let it spill all down my front. I choose the latter and Crown curses at me. My eyes are narrowed as I stare at him, and he finally pulls the glass away.

He looks at it then back at me before taking a huge drink and then offering it up again.

“It’s not poisoned; don’t be a stubborn little brat for once in your life.”

The way he’s staring at me, the way he’s talking to me, it isn’t how I’d expect him to treat a traitor of the club. He’s angry, that’s for damn sure, but why wouldn’t he be?

I Tased him. I stole his bike. I freed a hostage—a hostage who just so happens to be the prince of the mafia that the club’s been locked in war with for decades.

Rightfully, my head should be on a pike. Instead, I’ve been tended and washed, dressed in clean panties and a tank top, my shoulder cared for. My hair is even brushed and tangle-free. Reluctantly, I accept the glass and swig the remainder of its contents, swiping my arm across my lips as Crown and I examine one another like we both suspect the other of something nefarious.

It’s weird to be back here, like waking up in another world. Have three months really passed?

“Gidge,” Crown starts, sweeping hair back from my face. The gesture seems to annoy him as he withdraws his hand, staring down at it like it’s the traitor—rather than me. He opens his mouth to talk and then pauses, eyes flicking toward the bedroom door.

Somebody’s coming. I can hear the cacophony of boots as they make their way up the stairs.

“Listen to me,” Crown continues, turning all the way to face me and taking my head in two, big, tattooed hands. Our eyes meet, and I almost want to cry. I want to throw myself into his arms and let him hold me. And like, since when has that ever been a thing? We have never had that kind of relationship. It’s like the devil begging to be pulled into God’s embrace. Except … I know that Crown is anything but godly. Tears will not help me now—even if I were to realize that crying doesn’t necessarily make one weak. Maybe it’s that I’m just not strong enough to let my true feelings show? “After Grainger brought you to the compound, you bummed a smoke from Sin, and that’s the last thing I can recall. Only the five of us know you traded us for that boy.”

He keeps our gazes locked, squeezing me just a bit tighter than he should.

Wait.

Wait, wait, wait.

What?

“Who are you and what have you done with Crown?” I whisper, but he leans in even closer to me, putting our foreheads together. His voice is low and urgent and as close to desperate as I’ve ever heard it.

“Gidge, that’s all that I remember.” He pulls away from me just in time for the bedroom door to open. Cat walks in first, followed by René, Gaz, Sin, Grainger, Beast, and a handful of higher-ups and favorites of his. Then there’s little ol’ me, wearing nothing but a tank, panties, and a heart that’s close to bursting.

In club culture, the club comes first. Always. Forever. No matter what. It comes before wives and daughters, sons and cousins and grandparents and best friends. The club is life. The men are each other’s brothers in a way that marks the rest of the world secondary. Loyalty comes first and is prized above all else. Disloyalty is punished by death.

When I say blood in, blood out, I do not mean it euphemistically.

Then there’s Crown.

Mr. Black and White, choose a side and follow the rules, Boy Scout motherfucker.

For him to lie for me … for him to keep lying for me. No greater declaration need ever be said. The world’s greatest romantic gesture, and I don’t even know what to do with it.

Only the five of us know you traded us for that boy.

It doesn’t take a genius to parcel out who those five are. Me. Crown. Sin, Beast, Grainger.

I swallow hard and let out a long, slow exhale.

I’ll deal with the anger inherent in that statement later. Traded us. Ouch.

He thinks I chose Grey over him, over all of them. In a way, I suppose, I did. In my defense, I wasn’t aware that any one of them was a real option.

“Morning Gidge,” Cat says, pulling a chair close so he can sit in front of the bed.

“It’s Gidget,” I correct automatically, but the familiar quip seems strange, almost foreign. When I took Grey and ran, I was giving up this life forever. No, no, not just giving it up, as if it were some passive thing. I was throwing it as far and as hard as I could. I was making a guarantee and a promise that I would never come back. Yet, here I am.

Cat snorts and reaches out to ruffle my hair with his big hand. I stiffen up because, you know, the last time we were in a position similar to this, he put a gun to my forehead, pulled the trigger, and then dumped my bloody dog in my lap. Excuse the fuck out of me for not trusting the guy.

My brother glares daggers at me, his distrust apparent but unvoiced.

My eyes travel across the other faces in the room. Even though Sin tries to keep a straight face, he can’t. He cracks and gives me a small, crooked smile, the scar on the edge of his lip pulling his mouth up in such a way that he looks like a wolf. A pack predator. Just remember, Gidge, you are still a bear. You are still solo, even if it looks like you have allies.

Grainger and I lock eyes, and even though he scowls and looks away from me, we both know what happened in the chapel. He told me he missed me. That he hated me when he meant what was likely the exact opposite.

To his credit, Beast gives me nothing. But I can feel him. All of that power, all of that violence. The loyalty in his leash was moved long ago, and I just didn’t realize it, not until the day he beat up Gaz and ignored my father’s order. Only my voice could stop him. Only my voice could keep the monster at bay.

I look back at Cat.

“Girl, I won’t presume to know the things you been through,” he says, but with a grudging admiration and respect in his voice that I’ve never heard directed at me before. A rush of heady pleasure spirals through me, making my skin flush, and my lips part. It’s addictive, finally getting that approval from Cat that I’ve always craved, whether I knew it or not—even if I hate myself for it at the same time.

It’s so intense, so overwhelming, that it almost makes me understand why Gaz is such a suck-up, why he licks Cat’s boots and kisses his lily-white ass. Almost .

“There are unique tortures that a woman …” Cat stops, and I realize he’s giving me a moment to tell him if I’ve been raped. How many times, and by whom.

“They gave me to their son,” I say, weighing each word carefully, knowing that my entire life depends on the things I say in this room. Shit, my father’s officers’ lives depend on what I say now. If I slip up at all, we might as well dig a mass grave together and curl up inside. Five peas in a pod. “To Grey Wolfe.”

My father sniffles and leans back, running his hand over the lower half of his face. His rust-red eyes, the exact match to my own, watch me carefully.

“The hostage,” Cat clarifies, and I nod. He leans forward again, resting his elbows on his knees. He lowers his voice in just such a way that it’s meant to be read as a warning. “Tell me what happened that day, baby girl.”

I look my father dead in the face, and I lie with every ounce of conviction I have inside of me. This is life or death. Honesty is a privilege that I’m not afforded.

“You mean how did I get from your compound into the hands of the Grey Wolfe Mafia?” I spit back, putting emphasis on the compound and its apparent lack of security. It works, and I see several of the men behind my father shift uncomfortably. I make certain not to look at any of his officers, any of the four men that I shared my body with, that I’d gladly take to bed again and again and again, even against my better judgement. “Good question. I thought you’d be the one telling me that.” I exhale and push my hair back, wrapping my arms around my blanket-covered knees. “I remember Grainger taking me from the house to the compound.” I pause again and rub at the side of my head. If I give the story too easily or too quickly, then it’ll be obvious that I’m lying. It’s been three months since that day, and I’ve been through a lot. Although I remember each moment, each second that transpired, I probably wouldn’t under normal circumstances.

“Hurry it up,” Gaz snaps, and surprisingly, it’s freaking Grainger that reaches out and snatches my brother’s arm. He is, after all, the sergeant-at-arms which means it’s his job to keep the club members in line. He’s like a sheriff for the club while Crown is the VP, Sin is the travel agent, and Beast is the … executioner.

“Shut your fucking mouth and let her talk,” Cade hisses, his umber eyes darkening with a rage that I think I’m finally starting to understand. He releases my brother, but Gaz sneers at him in a way that tells me he won’t forget this moment if an opportunity arises later.

“I got bored, so I wandered up the hill and bummed a smoke from Sin …” I trail off again, like I’m thinking. “Pretty sure he told me to fuck off, and I told him to eat shit. Then I went into the woods and carved I Hate Cat into a tree.” My father snorts, but he isn’t displeased. There’s a certain level of defiance from me that he finds amusing. Maybe because it reminds him so much of himself—the person that he loves most in all the world. “Some guy came out of the trees and asked me my name. I just assumed he was a prospect or something, so I flipped him off. After that …” I swallow hard and throw the blankets back, revealing my ruined legs. “Pain.” My voice cracks, but I don’t have to fake it. The pain of that accident haunts me at night. More than once Grey had to wake me from a nightmare where I was bleeding to death on the pavement.

My father leans back in his chair again, crossing his arms over his chest as I touch my legs with shaky fingers, hating the shiny pink scars and the craggy skin. Crown very gently takes the blanket and puts it back over me.

“Fuck,” Cat murmurs as the other men wait patiently behind him. He rubs at his jaw for a moment. I don’t think for a split-second that he believes me so easily because he’s taking my word for it. He believes me because … my gaze shifts over to Crown’s.

He’s watching me oh so carefully, like a porcelain doll that might tumble off the shelf and break. It annoys the crap out of me, that expression. I’m not some fragile thing in need of rescue; I survived a lot. I was about to become the queen of the Grey Wolfe Mafia for fuck’s sake.

“What next?” Cat asks, which isn’t unexpected.

I recall those first few days, where I was bleeding and broken and barely conscious.

“I remember being tied to a chair. I remember … I had no skin on my legs.” I close my eyes. “My right shoulder was dislocated; I couldn’t feel my fingers.”

“Don’t look like you missed a meal to me,” Gaz murmurs, and I flick my eyes open just in time to see Grainge cuff him in the back of the head.

“You spoiled rotten brat,” he snarls, taking my brother by the nape. “Get out and take a walk, calm yourself down. How dare you let sibling rivalry get in the way of club business. You should be ashamed of yourself.” Grainger shoves my brother toward the door, and nobody stops him. Cat doesn’t even glance back. To be fair, even by club standards my brother was out of line.

But that’s not why Cade Grainger is punishing him.

A strange, effervescent sort of feeling takes over me then. It’s tempered, of course, by the reality of my situation, but I’d be lying if I said I got no thrill in thinking that these four men, these four monsters … might actually care about me.

Might.

It’s possible that they have different motives in mind. No, not just possible, but likely.

I blame my delusions of romance and caring on blood loss and shock.

“Go on,” Cat encourages, reaching out to touch my knee. He gives me a fatherly pat, and I look at him like a crazy person. He laughs at me and then ruffles up my hair. “Girl, you’ve got balls, I’ll give you that. Three months in the mafia, and you managed to marry their son?”

Crown stiffens up beside me.

“I have ovaries, actually,” I correct, and Cat laughs again. See what I mean? Just enough defiance. It’s a fine line, one that I long ago decided I’d cross over whenever I damn well felt like it. Thus, Fem’s leg. Thus, the moment when Cat put a gun in my hand and told me to kill a kid. Only problem here is that, even with the boys lying for me, I’m still in deep shit. I know things. Way too many things. Club shit. And I can’t know club shit and walk away. There’s only one good option for me right now, and I’ve gotten damn good at that, searching for the least shitty option in a steaming pile of turds. “But it wasn’t like that. For days and days, they tortured me.” Leaving me bloody and infected and hurting was akin to torture, so it’s not a total lie. “Grey told them we were in love to save his own ass, so they wouldn’t know he was a rat.”

I shove at my forehead with the heel of my hand. I’m so tired and disoriented. I really and truly never believed I’d come back here. That I’d never see Cat again unless it was at the end of a gun barrel. That I’d never see any of these men. Yet … my whole world is shifting and changing before my very eyes.

“Maybe that’s enough for today?” Crown suggests, and Cat gives him a look that very clearly says he doesn’t appreciate the insinuation. The VP of the Death by Daybreak Motorcycle Club curls his hands into fists, but keeps his mouth shut.

“The Don …” I start, giving a harsh laugh and a shake of my head. “He challenged me to get up and move into a different room. I crawled on my hands and knees. He warned the two of us that if we were lying, we’d both die. So guess what? We spent two months stuck in that room with cameras on our asses—even in the bathroom. Two months trapped in jail. They barely talked to us. I expected interrogation, but …”

“The mafia has their own tricks,” Cat says with another snort, and a sneer. “So, how’d you end up hitched?”

“Alvise told us that we were getting married. Period. End of sentence. It’s not like either of us had much choice in the matter. They kept testing me. They gave me a gun with a single bullet, just to see what I’d do. They made us sit at these fancy dinners and talk about nothing.” I swallow hard because this part, even though it hurts the most, is by far the most important piece. “When I asked why they’d kill their own grandchild, they told me Queenie was just a whore carrying a bastard kid. I …” I look up and meet my father’s eyes. “If I get my hands on Giulia Wolfe, I’ll tear her limb from limb.”

Cat nods his approval and makes to stand up, but I’m not done. I know he isn’t either, that we’ll be having this conversation a good dozen times before he’s satisfied that he’s absorbed every detail.

“Wait.” My breath catches, and my whole world tips upside down. I can hardly even believe that I’m about to say the words that are resting on the tip of my little devil tongue. “I know a lot, Cat. Too much. I …” I start and then bite my lip, flicking my eyes away and focusing on some loose stitching in the pillowcase. “Gaz won’t be happy. A lot of the old-timers, they—”

“Nobody’s going to punish you for this,” Cat tells me, resting his hand atop my head. Yet again, I’m struck by the gesture. I don’t understand it. I also don’t trust it. A man who shoots his daughter’s dog’s leg off doesn’t just flip a switch and become a kind and caring father over the span of twelve weeks.

He turns and starts to move away.

“Marry me off,” I blurt, before I lose my nerve. Fuck, that room … it’s so quiet, you could hear a body drop. Because, you know, the phrase a pin drop doesn’t really apply to one-percenters. Cat pauses then and looks back at me, cocking one gray furred brow.

“The hell?” he asks, but I lift my eyes up to meet his, fully confident in the words I’m saying.

Like I said, I know too much. Cat isn’t just going to let me waltz off to college. He won’t like the idea of me getting too far away from the club. To be honest, this is an inevitability. If I’m married to one of the guys in the club—in particular, one of his officers—then that seals me in, makes me family in more ways than one.

My mind makes rapid-fire calculations.

Sin is too young. Even though the thought of a man trying to control me is hilarious, Cat will think he isn’t mature enough to keep me in line.

Crown is his favorite, the man he relies on for everything. He’s also the vice president which means that, if I were to marry him, I’d have far too much power for Cat’s liking.

Grainger is a possibility—if he’d even have me—but he’s also the sergeant-at-arms. Again, a very important and powerful position in the club. Guys like him aren’t exactly the marrying type anyway.

My best chance here is Beast. First off, he beat the crap out of Gaz for me which Cat knows. Last I had heard, they sent him away to spend time in Southern California with the Los Gatos chapter of Death by Daybreak. Likely, he’s only back because I went missing. If Cat sends him away again, I lose the most important ally I have. Every asshole in the club is afraid of Beast—including Cat. They also need him because nobody can do the job he does the way he does it.

I look up and meet his eyes, the soft blue of a robin’s eggs.

“Give me to Beast.”

The words come out like a whip, one that strikes every man in that room in a different way. The nobodies in the back, my dad’s buddies, they all exchange looks. Cat turns around to stare at me like I’m an alien creature.

“I want to be his old lady.”

Never in my life did I—or anyone else—ever expect to hear those words leave my lips.

Sin looks devastated; Grainger is furious. Crown is … I don’t even have words to describe that man right now.

“You think Beast wants your ass?” Cat chokes out with a laugh, turning to look at his enforcer. Catcher Coffey, the ex-MMA fighter, and complete and total badass, lifts his gaze from mine to look at his president. “How about it, Beast? You want this wily little bitch?”

Beast adjusts his gaze back to mine, and oh boy. If I were standing, I might be staggered. As such, I’m left breathless and wondering if this is either the greatest decision I’ve ever made in my life … or the worst mistake.

Several of the guys in the room—the nameless ones that I don’t give a shit about—chuckle, as if anything about this is funny. If they understood the look on Beast’s face, they’d know that it wasn’t.

“I want her,” he says, his Southern accent dripping like honey from those perfect lips. He swipes a hand over the lower half of his face. “It’d be my honor.”

“Well, fuck me,” Cat murmurs, giving me an almost sympathetic sort of look, like he’s actually worried about marrying his daughter off to a man named Beast who kills people for a living. I might understand the sentiment if, for several years at least, I haven’t wondered if it wouldn’t be Cat himself who might orchestrate my last and final breath. “Alright then. You want the girl, you can have her. Saves me a load of trouble.”

“Give her to me,” Crown says, and I go completely still. Every man in that room goes still.

What … what is happening right now?

I lift my eyes up to look at him. His mouth is pursed tight, his expression murderous in a way I’ve never seen before. He’s staring right at me, hands squeezed tight. His muscles are so tense that the police car tattooed onto his left arm is distorted.

“Excuse me?” Cat asks as Crown redirects his attention to his president and then rises to his feet.

“I’ll take her off your hands,” he offers, which is insulting as hell.

Cat looks from his vice president to me, and then back again. I really don’t like the way he’s studying Crown, like he doesn’t fully trust him. That’s pretty much the last thing any of us needs right now. I might have four officers on my side, but that doesn’t mean shit in contrast to the club’s might. There are thirty-three chapters in as many states. Thousands of soldiers in leather ready to hunt down dissenters.

“Don’t fuck around,” I blurt with a choking laugh, one with absolutely zero mirth in it. “Aren’t you already dating one of the club-whores?” I make the words sound mocking, even if all I’m trying to do is help. Damn you, Crown. Damn you for dumping emotional baggage in my lap today of all days.

I’ll take her off your hands? Really? What an asshole.

“You don’t have the time to waste wrangling this girl anyway,” Cat adds with a bit of a scowl—but one that isn’t directed at me, not this time. My father turns and leaves the room; René and the rest of the good ol’ boys go with him.

Crown watches him go, seething in silence. As soon as they’re gone, Sin moves forward and pushes the bedroom door closed, turning and putting his back against it. He looks almost … broken? Like the idea of me marrying Beast is a nail in his fragile emotional coffin.

“Don’t you think Daddy Dearest might get suspicious if we start having private caucuses?” I ask, rubbing at my face with both hands.

“We’re on guard duty,” Crown says dryly. “Again.”

I drop my hands to my lap and look up at him, right into those moss green eyes and classically handsome face. He could’ve been a star in thriller films or cowboy movies or something. He could’ve … well, Crown has potential. He clearly was and could’ve been so much more than an outlaw.

“Jesus fucking Christ, Gidge,” Cade snarls out, because that’s his favorite saying in all the world. Jesus fucking Christ. Told ya we had a religious thing going on. He stalks up to the side of the bed like he wants to start a fight with me. “You’ve been missing for three months and the first thing out of your mouth is marry my ass off ?”

I look up at him; he’s shaking with rage, and I can’t help but wonder if he isn’t jealous. Or … he’s just mad about the whole ‘traitor to the club’ thing. Right. I must’ve lost a ton of blood; I’m fantasizing.

“What else should I have done?” I query back, sort of hating the fact that I’m cheapening this thing with Beast. It doesn’t seem as … out of convenience’s sake as I thought it would. “Gaz—and probably a large chunk of the club—is going to be suspicious. And you know the weirdest part? For the first time in my entire life, they’re right. For once, I didn’t toe the line. For once, I—”

“Sugar,” Beast warns, giving me a look as Sin finally pushes up off the door to come and stand beside us.

“You don’t want me to say it?” I query, keeping my voice low. Could there be cameras in here? Nah. The guys would tell me about them. And anyway, that’s more of a mafia thing, a snake in the grass sort of move. We revel in brute force and confrontation around here. “That I fucked Sin, stole his keys, and then kidnapped the mafia brat? That I took Crown’s bike with the intention of heading to the airport?”

None of them stop me when I start to talk. They just stand there and let it happen. I imagine this is a side effect of them having thought they’d lost me forever. I’ll get a bit more leeway than usual (for a short while anyway).

“What happened, Gidge?” Sin asks me, his voice low and thick with emotion. I look up and into his pretty gray eyes, wishing that I could’ve picked him. Not … instead of Beast, but alongside. How fucked up is that? There isn’t a single part of me that doesn’t wish we could talk like we did before, before my sisters died and he kissed me in the most inappropriate but devastatingly beautiful way on a rainy, ash-filled afternoon.

As nice as he seems right now, I know he’s angry with me. It’s there, in the trenchant glint of that blade-like mouth, those sharp-edged lips. He could so very easily cut me, make me bleed with words—or another kiss.

I blink past the metaphor.

“Not far from the compound, I came across a roadblock,” I say, remembering the moment like it was yesterday. “I tried to stop, but …” I shake my head and then push the blankets back, showing off my scarred legs for the second time. “The bike skidded, and I grabbed Grey. We jumped off just in time to watch it smash into a mafia-owned Caddy and … explode.” It sounds like a bunch of bullshit when I say it aloud, but that’s the truth right there, plain and simple. “Everything else is true.”

“Why’d you do it, suge?” Beast asks me, squatting down beside the bed and making me nervous in a way that I can’t quite explain. My eyes find his big hands and I wish with a strange fervency that he’d reach out and touch me. Not sexually, not right now, just … for comfort or something.

“Cat was going to make me kill Grey,” I tell Beast, realizing as the words come out how ridiculous they sound. Didn’t I just fire a machine gun into a crowd of wedding guests? Somebody will have died. I will have killed someone anyway, just the way that Cat wanted. So I’m tied to the club. I’m marrying into the club. Fuuuuuuuck. “I wasn’t going to put a gun to some kid’s head and pull the trigger like that.”

I let my angry glare trail across the four of them, hating them with every breath and yet wishing that they were different. Knowing that, in fact, they are. They’re all lying for me. They’re risking their lives. They’re putting my welfare above the welfare of the club.

Just like I always wanted.

Be careful what you wish for, Gidge.

“I don’t understand,” I choke out finally, my angry look turning to one of pleading. “Why are you doing this for me? I fully expected to die. I was willing to die.”

The four of them don’t answer me, not right away.

Silence reigns for several minutes before Beast reaches out and runs his palm down the length of my leg, making me shiver.

“I want you, sugar,” he tells me, looking me right in the face. “I want to marry you. But if you don’t, you don’t gotta.” He stands up suddenly, and I scramble to follow after. I’m barely on my feet for a second before my knees go weak, and I’m falling. Once again, Sin manages to catch me before I hit the ground. “And,” Beast continues, moving back toward the door, “if you want to use me for protection, use me, Gidge. You don’t owe me a damn thing.” He leaves and slams the door shut behind him.

“I’m not going to let you do this for me if you don’t tell me why,” I breathe, and I sound so young when I say that, like an eighteen-year-old girl. I hate that. That isn’t who I am on the inside, some stupid ass teenager.

“So go tell Cat we’re all lying for you,” Grainger challenges, making me grit my teeth at the acidity in his words. “Get us all killed then, if that’s what you want so badly.”

And then he’s leaving, too, storming out and cursing under his breath.

Being with Sin and Crown again reminds me of that last night, when I approached them on the hill and bitched Crown out about the fentanyl-laced cocaine he made me distribute to my classmates.

“I’m sorry that I used you,” I tell Sin, looking up and into his face. He’s so pretty, I’d almost forgotten. It makes me wonder if there isn’t some dark magic in this place. More specifically, in these men. When I had distance from them, I could almost imagine that I never cared for them at all. Finding myself back here so suddenly … I can’t pretend anymore. “That I fucked you for your keys …” I trail off as Crown throws his younger peer a sharp look. “And I’m sorry, Crown—”

“Don’t,” he says, lifting a hand and cutting me off in a way that makes me grit my teeth. “We don’t need apologies; we need a straight story.”

“My story wasn’t straight enough for you, straight shooter?” I quip back, and Crown gives me one of his looks, the ones that have always pissed me off and yet now, for some stupid reason, also seem to have the power to turn me on. “I still don’t understand—”

“You should’ve asked to marry me,” Crown says, looking away from me like he’s disappointed. I feel my face flush red, and if I weren’t in such rough shape, I might sock him in the face. “You only think you’re a master strategist, Gidge.”

My mouth gapes open as he, too, stands up and makes his grand exit. He, of course, doesn’t slam the door behind him because Crown doesn’t do things like that, right? He’s an adult.

“He’s jealous,” Sin says, lighting up a cigarette and then offering it out to me. I haven’t had a smoke in months—and even though I know I shouldn’t, I take it anyway. The first drag is almost as heavenly as that first stroke of Grainger’s cock back in the chapel. “I told you he was into you.”

“Bullshit,” I snort, but now who’s the idiot? The only person I’m lying to right now is myself. Crown wouldn’t have lied for me if he didn’t care. I try to tell myself that he’s just protecting Cat, because if Cat found out, it would kill him, and then he would kill me, and … but that’s just a load of crap. The only reason—and I mean only reason—that Crown would do something like this is …

I can’t even make myself think it.

“Isn’t he dating Amber Clearwater?” I say instead, and Sin gives me a look.

“It’s been three months, and that’s what you want to talk about?” he asks me, his voice sad and distant. His mouth, though, is still sharp, this beautiful blade that I want to drag across my own throat. Make myself bleed hot down my chest. That’s how addictive his poison is.

That’s the real reason that I had to run.

I clench my jaw tight.

“I’m telling Cat the truth, you know?” I say, adjusting the blankets and leaning back into the pillows. Sin takes the cigarette from me and our fingers brush, this dangerous dance of digits that could so very easily lead to something else. All it would take is one small acquiescent gesture from either of us.

Sin hesitates for a moment, the small silver hoops in his ears catching the light from the fire that I didn’t notice until just now. It’s actually quite cozy in here. You wouldn’t think it could be, considering the number of bodies beneath the floorboards. That, and probably hidden in the walls, little pieces of people who pissed the club off.

People like me.

“I believe you,” he tells me finally and then he, too, turns and heads for the door. He pauses with his hand on the knob and glances back at me. “I’m glad you’re back, Gidge. Things were weird around here without you.”

Sin leaves the room, and I’m left alone with my thoughts.

Those four cocksuckers … they’re lying for me.

Lying to the club. Lying to Cat. Lying to their brothers.

For me. Because of me.

As I’d always suspected and, at times, feared, there’s something here.

Something that I can’t ignore, no matter how much I wish that I could.