I’m not given a choice on whether I want to go back to school or not.

“Don’t see no sense in that,” Cat tells me during a particularly awkward family dinner. We never had these often, and they’re even weirder now, post Queenie and Posey, post my kidnapping, post my marriage announcement.

Nellie’s made spaghetti, but I can barely look at it. Eating it makes me think of Queenie. Watching Gaz eat it makes me think of the night Nellie used Queenie’s cookbook and then he beat me up over my reaction to the whole thing.

“No sense in education?” I query, my tone mocking. Cat gives me a warning look, and I realize I’m tiptoeing far too close to that dangerous edge. I just … sitting here like nothing’s changed, I can’t do that. I reject the idea of a cage, I remind myself. Claim your armor, Gidget. “Maybe that’s a question my fiancé and I should think about together?”

Cat looks up and grins at something—or someone—from over my shoulder. I pause with a bite of noodles halfway to my mouth, turning to find Beast waiting in the doorway.

“Sorry I’m late,” he drawls, and I very carefully set my fork down.

“Join us,” Cat says with a grunt, gesturing to the chair beside me.

I can barely look at Beast as he takes his seat, but our legs touch, memories of his words to me the other day ringing in my head. “I’m not touchin’ you until our wedding night.” This fucker over here.

“We were just discussing the merits of Gidget returning to school,” Cat says, talking over my head as Nellie simpers at me, and Gaz sneers. He doesn’t trust me. Never did. But now? I would hate to find myself alone in a room with him. My brother has never made his distaste for me private. This time, I really believe he’ll cross right over the officers’ and Cat’s good sides and take his revenge whether they like it or not. Revenge for what slight, exactly, I’m not sure. I hate that his suspicions are probably at least partially correct.

“I’m still here,” I grind out, giving my father a look. Gaz bristles. Nellie smiles in a much less simpering way that makes me realize I don’t completely and utterly hate her. Cat looks like he wants to slap me. I make my voice quiet but strong, the way Nellie taught me once. Nellie … or Mom, I guess. “Our marriage isn’t going to be like yours or anyone else’s.”

I sit up straight as Cat stares at me with raging disbelief in his gaze.

That’s when I know it for certain: he doesn’t trust me either. He suspects something. The thought chills me to my core, bringing goose bumps up along my spine.

“Is that so?” Cat quips back, leaning his hairy forearm on the table. He lifts his gaze to Beast.

Here’s what I figure: the guys care enough about me that they’ll either step up or let me go. Crown implied as much last night, offering to spirit me away. So, I’m going to forge ahead with what I want. The club is home, even if I never wanted to admit that to myself.

Another thing I don’t much care to admit: going back to school isn’t a great option for me.

To begin with, I poisoned my classmates with fentanyl-laced cocaine. Also, I got a girl—Carol Briggs—murdered. On top of all that, I’m going to be number one on the mafia’s most wanted list. If I were to attend class at the school, I’d be a sitting duck. Someone—probably several someones—would have to come and watch over me, diverting resources from the compound.

It’s an impossibility.

My breath hitches as I realize exactly how far this has gone.

No longer am I Cat’s high school age daughter. I’m something else. I’m becoming something else.

“Online school,” I say, which sucks serious ass. It’s not the same; everyone knows that. “I’ll get my diploma that way.” I stab my fork into my noodles and twist them around the tines, pausing as Beast’s large hand lands on my thigh.

Heat ratchets through me, and I’m forced to grit my teeth to ignore the pulsing between my thighs. One touch shouldn’t be able to do that, spark flames inside of someone, turn them to ash, make them bargain with everything they have for just one more caress, one more kiss, one more fuck.

“You think you have time for online school?” Cat queries back at me. “You’re on your way to becoming a wife.” He twirls his spaghetti on his fork in the exact same way that I’m doing, and the move just infuriates me. We’re too alike, me and my father. “What do you think, Beast?”

There’s a long moment of silence before he answers which isn’t unusual. I take my bite of noodles and lean back, glancing over at him as I chew. He’s already watching me, sending chills through me in a completely different way than Cat did. Not touching me until our wedding night, this bastard. Does he think he’s being cute or something?

“I think I’ll deal with my old lady as I see fit,” is what he says.

Gaz slams his meaty fist down on the table, making Nellie jump. Again, pretty sure she’s afraid of him. My brother glares at me with rust-colored eyes, so much like mine and Cat’s.

“We’re all just gonna sit here and forget that this asshole,” Gaz starts and then he shakes his head as Cat turns a look on him, “this motherfucker kicked the shit out of me?” Gaz stands up, but Beast ignores him, continuing to eat his food like the polite Southern gentleman that he is. I mean, a polite Southern gentleman that kills people, but eh, we’ve all got flaws.

I ignore the rush of power that I feel.

Cat commands demons. Now, I also command demons. Neither of us is much to look at on our own, but we’re tenacious as fuck. Guess there are some positives to having been born of his wrinkly old balls.

“And now we all know the truth,” Gaz continues, but Cat curls his lip at his son. He’s getting irritated.

“Sit your ass down,” he commands, his words like a dark spell that my brother finds impossible to resist. “Beast here wanted your sister; he got her. I say we wish him luck and pity the poor bastard.” Cat lifts his beer up in salute and then takes a swig. Beast doesn’t say anything at all, but I can feel him tensing beside me. “Frankly, it all makes sense to me now. He was fucking her; you beat her ass. Seems like a fair trade that you got yours kicked, too.” Cat continues to drink his beer, coming to the exact conclusion that I intended for him all along.

I can’t hide a smirk as I take another bite of my food and stare Gaz down across the surface of the table. I most definitely don’t expect him to lunge for me.

He doesn’t make it even halfway across the table before Beast is up and grabbing him around the throat. He drags my brother across the table’s surface, sending dishes and pasta scattering across the floor. Glass breaks; Nellie curses. Cat leans back in his chair with a long-suffering sigh.

This is such a disconnect from those quiet evenings at the mafia palace, where all the violence was hidden beneath silk ties and satin gowns, shark smiles and flawless contouring.

Beast very casually slams my brother into the wall beside the entrance to the foyer. He doesn’t break a sweat. Actually, he also manages not to disturb his food, mine, Cat’s, or Nellie’s. Just Gaz’s meal is scattered. Impressive.

“If you ever lay your hands on my woman again, I’ll kill ya and bury you next to your gram.” Beast releases Gaz. The latter sinks to the floor, choking dramatically and clutching at his neck. I pick up my fork and continue to eat.

Cat looks on impassively as Nellie rushes to get him another beer from the fridge.

“You don’t touch another man’s old lady without his permission,” Cat agrees, and that’s that.

My armor … it’s working.

But Gaz, he’s a wildcard. I’m going to need to tread carefully here. If he even once catches me alone on the compound, I’ll be in big fucking trouble.

Beast follows me up to my grandmother’s room. Not sure how long I’ll be staying here, but for the time being, it’s mine. He waits in the doorway as I move into the room and flop onto the edge of the bed.

“You’re not coming in?” I query, raising an eyebrow. I gesture to a bottle of scotch on the nightstand. “I stole this last night while Cat was sleeping. Pretty sure it was my grandmother’s anyway. He won’t miss it.”

Beast gives me a ghost of a smile but not much more.

I study him in the dim light cast by the antique fixtures near the door. He’s a big guy, muscular and hard, his blond hair shaved on one side then carefully brushed over. Between the septum ring, the eclipse tattoo on his right arm, and the bright blue eyes, he could be a model.

“No thanks, sugar. If I step into that room, and I close this door …” He trails off as he studies me, my heart thundering under the intensity of his gaze. He may as well be fucking me for how he’s staring right now, like his stare is capable of cutting me apart and seeing all the secrets lying underneath. Not that there are any left. Me and Beast, we’re done with secrets. “Well, then I won’t be able to keep my promise.”

I lean back on the bed, shameless as I rub my thighs together. He watches me, but he’s got that ironclad control that’s always pissed me off. I still find myself surprised sometimes that he ever fucked me at all. As much as he’s proud of his self-control, I’m proud of my ability to whittle away at it.

“Suit yourself,” I murmur, turning over and putting my ass in the air as I pretend to strain for the bottle of scotch. Really, it’s in easy reach. Without looking back, I unscrew the top and take a swig.

The sound of boots on the carpet gives me pause, and then there he is, taking a seat in a leather chair across the room from me. He sinks into it the way a jaguar might sink into a hunting crouch, all fluid muscles and well-oiled joints.

The bedroom door, however, is still open.

Intentional, I’m sure.

“I hope Gaz does hit me again,” I say, forcing myself into a sitting position and leaving the bottle between my knees. Whatever this shit is, it’s smooth and it goes down without a hitch when I take another swig, warming up my lower belly. “Then you can kill him, and we can be done with his ass.”

Beast is quiet for several heartbeats, his big, tattooed hands resting on the arms of the chair.

“Don’t wish for that, Gidge,” he drawls, the vowels long and sleepy and warm. I could curl up inside of his words. Instead, I watch him warily, taking another sip of my stolen drink. “Your brother’s a dangerous man, and he’s made himself pretty popular among the other Daybreakers.”

“And you? Don’t tell me you’re not popular,” I admonish, letting the alcohol make me bold. If my life were a game, then clearly the pause button’s been hit. Nothing is happening right now. Soon, the world will shift; I can feel it. Just like the Daybreaker’s logo, the moon will eclipse the sun and usher in darkness.

Death by Daybreak versus Grey Wolfe.

I shift uncomfortably, turning to look out the open balcony doors, a sea of stars beyond.

If I listen carefully, I can almost hear Grey whispering to me in Italian. Fuck, I miss him already. He’s like … like a male Reba. They’re not at all similar in personality or interests of course, but what I mean is that he felt like a friend in a way that only Reba has before. Someone who actually cared about me with little in the way of motive.

No sex, no secrets, no bullshit. Just companionship.

“The other men are afraid of me,” Beast admits finally, when I’d almost forgotten that I asked him a question at all. He thinks about every single syllable. Grainger, on the other hand, can’t keep his damn mouth shut. Another swig, more burning, an even warmer belly. Beast runs his hand over that neatly trimmed beard of his, studying me. “For now, that’s enough. Eventually, it might not be.”

“Gaz?” I say again with a long-suffering sigh. “I always found him pathetic, but are you trying to tell me he’s a real threat?”

Another long, pregnant pause before Beast stands up and heads over to the bedroom door. He closes it and flicks the lock, moving over to the open balcony doors to do the same. Then, he pauses in the corner and plays around with the old gramophone.

I cock a brow.

“I knew you were old, but not that old,” I quip, and Beast actually … well, his shoulders shudder slightly. Is he laughing? He turns on some grainy old music. “And wow, you’re a romantic, too? On top of everything? Is there anything you don’t do?”

“Right now, Gidge?” he asks, throwing a look over his shoulder. “You.”

Ouch.

Beast comes over to the bed, and I swear, there’s a seismic shift in that room. The tension between us is hot and sticky, these long threads that threaten to tangle me up. When he sits down next to me, the mattress dents and I end up sort of tumbling into him.

He lets out a violent exhale and swipes his hand down his face.

This self-imposed celibacy isn’t easy on him either, much as he’d like to pretend otherwise.

“Gaz isn’t a threat by himself,” he admits, and I realize that the music and the closed doors and the proximity to me on the bed are all distractions to keep anyone from listening in on us. I mean, I knew that, but it’s still disappointing. “But he’s got a following. He is Cat’s son, after all.”

“And I’m his daughter,” I say, in a tone that brooks no argument.

Me versus Gaz.

Probably about as exciting as the club versus the mafia.

“Mm.” Beast pauses again, his eyes focused on the ceiling and not on me. It’s impossible to ignore the shape of his shoulders beneath his leather cut, the strength in his arms, the snippets of heated memory where he’s rutting between my thighs. I exhale and shove some of my dark hair away from my face. “We gotta be wary, Gidge. Crown spins a good story, but if anyone looks too close, there are parts that don’t add up.”

“We can’t be at war within the club and still fight the mafia,” I muse, and Beast gives a slow, easy nod. Wrapping my fingers around the neck of the bottle, I lift it to my lips, contemplating the questions that I want to ask. How much do I really want to know?

The truth?

Fucking everything.

I turn to Beast.

“Cat came for me,” I say, trying the words out and seeing how they fit. He beats my dog. He burns my clothes. He let my sisters die. I don’t understand. “Why?”

Beast doesn’t smile this time, just watches me from those expressive eyes of his. The song on the gramophone ends, but it continues to make a whirring sound to help fill the silence.

“Cat is your father, sugar,” he tells me carefully. There’s violence coiled inside of this man, just waiting to be unleashed. By … me? I take yet another drink, my head spinning and buzzing with alcohol. “Crown is wrong about the world.” He pauses here and shakes his head. “It ain’t black and white. Your father is as gray as they come.”

I look back down at the rug, imagining Queenie’s surety as she pushed me into the pantry and locked the door. She had faith in me. She sacrificed herself to keep me alive. Because if she’d gone into the pantry, those men would’ve looked for her. They were there for her, and she knew it as surely as she knew all things. The way she always knew there was no boogeyman beneath my bed or in my closet. No, the boogeymen were downstairs, smoking cigarettes and drinking beer. At the clubhouse fucking groupies or digging holes behind Gram’s place. They were out in the night, powerful men making powerful deals and not caring who they hurt in the process.

Innocent souls like Queenie, like Posey.

“Kian never raped Queenie.” It’s the first time I’ve said it aloud to anyone. It feels right to say it. My sister carved her name into that baseboard because she was at the Artefact, at a party—with Kian. She was hooking up with him because she loved him. Nobody in her position would take the risk if she didn’t. Kian and Queenie could not have been anymore wrong for one another and yet, they were willing to risk and eventually give their lives for a chance at being together.

“He did not,” Beast growls, like the admission hurts him somehow.

“You killed him.” It’s a guess, but it’s probably true, isn’t it? Because who else but Beast would be there to help with the torture and murder of a rival’s heir?

“I did.” His voice is hollow and dark, devoid of that sweet honeyed Southern drawl.

It’s disturbing to hear him admit it. I glance over, not for the first time realizing how truly fucked-up this situation is. Beast is dangerous as hell. He’s a stranger. He’s sixteen years older than I am. He kills people when Cat tells him to—even if he knows they’re innocent. Well, okay, so I doubt that Kian Wolfe was ever innocent in the most basic sense of the word. “He was ruthless.” That’s what Grey told me.

Still, Kian didn’t hurt Queenie. He loved her. The child inside of her, that was his baby, too.

“Why?” I ask, still staring at the floor, still trying to figure it all out. It could be simple: Cat didn’t want his daughter fucking a mafia brat. Moreover, he didn’t want her leaving with a mafia brat and possibly giving away club secrets. But it’s never that simple.

Kian was supposed to meet Queenie at a park. That’s where the club found him. They planned on running away together.

“The casino …” I start, thinking about Cat’s reaction to it.

Beast leans forward with the creak of leather, putting his elbows on his knees.

“The casino was laundering money for the club,” Beast tells me, in as frank a way as any man has ever spoken to me in my entire life. Since before I can remember, I’ve been toddling around this place like a ghost, a presence that’s tolerated but never acknowledged.

Everything is different now. Today. Because of what I did with Grey. Because of these men and their reaction to it.

“The casino … that the mafia now controls?” I suggest, turning so that my face is just inches from my future husband’s. His gaze drops to my mouth, and I bet he’s fantasizing about what it would feel like were I to wrap these warm lips around his cock. My hand slides over Beast’s inner thigh, tracing his denim with my nails.

His eyes narrow slightly, but otherwise, he doesn’t move.

“The mafia took the casino,” I declare, the realization heightened by the presence of alcohol. “The club wanted retaliation for the casino.”

“Kian told Cat about the mafia’s plans to wipe out the club,” Beast admits, watching my hand on his thigh like it’s a wild animal he might very well need to catch and kill. “He thought that by telling Cat what he knew, it might endear him somehow. Maybe he’d be given Queenie. Shit, the cocky bastard thought he could prospect in.”

I cock a brow at that.

Pretty ballsy on Kian’s part.

“Cat thought he might know more than what he was saying,” Beast finishes, grabbing my hand in a firm grip. He very purposefully puts it back in my lap. “Wedding night, sugar.” And then he’s rising to his feet and leaving me there with a scotch and information induced high.

He opens the door in time to meet Crown, and then steps aside.

They have some sort of murmured conversation, and I see Crown’s eyes narrow before they trade places for the night.

Beast disappears down the stairs as Crown closes the door behind him.

“No wonder Cat was so interested in hearing about the casino,” I offer up and Crown curses. He looks so tired right now, like I’ve stolen his soul and taken it for myself. I will, if given the chance, but I’m pretty sure we’re not quite there yet. “Especially if they backed out of a deal with the intention of sucking the mafia’s dick.”

“You’re really digging into this, aren’t you?” he asks me, his voice dry. He stands over me the way he’s always done, lording and looking and judging. I ignore him, sipping the scotch and mulling Beast’s words over in my head. “Don’t you think you’ve done enough? Maybe it’s time to step back and let us handle things. It’s what we do, Gidge.”

I give him a look that he returns with one of his own. Meanwhile, the gramophone prattles along in the corner, an almost eerie backdrop to our conversation. There’s something wicked about its tinny, scratchy sound as the spinning record comes to a slow stop.

Crown turns to look at it, tilting his head slightly to one side before moving over to reset the needle and crank the handle. The song restarts, the voice of its singer plucked from the cobwebs of lost nostalgia.

“Eddie Morton,” Crown says, which surprises the shit out of me. He stands there, grinning and listening to the oddly appropriate lyrics while I gape at his back. The fuck does this asshole know about gramophones?!

“I hate a moral coward, one who lacks a manly spark; I just detest a man afraid to go home in the dark; I always spend my evening where there’s women wine and song; But like a man, I always bring my little wife along!”

“Um,” I start as Crown very briefly adds his voice to the recording, singing some line that feels plucked out of the ebony sky like a shard of fate: “Bring your wife and trouble, it will never trouble you; Make her a member of the Midnight Crew!”

“You know this song?” I croak. “It’s like a hundred years old.”

He puts his hands on his hips, staring down at the gramophone like he’s lost in memories.

“My mother collected antiques; she had this exact recording.” He smiles and gestures in that general direction before turning around.

“Jesus, you’re all so old ,” I murmur, and Crown sighs dramatically.

“I’m thirty years old, Gidge. I’m sure that feels old to you—sometimes it even feels old to me—but I assure you that I am nowhere near the age where I was listening to a gramophone in my childhood bedroom.”

I cast him a disbelieving look, tapping my nails against the glass neck of the scotch bottle. The French manicure that Giulia’s servant girls gave me is long past its prime with multiple nails chipped and stained, yet another reminder that I very nearly lived a brand-new life in a completely different universe.

“Are you sure about that? You look like you were around when the gramophone was invented.”

Crown comes over to me then, crossing his arms, his gaze this penetrating beam that I do my best to ignore. We sort of had a thing the other night, didn’t we? The bastard isn’t engaged to Amber; he has a ruby ring that matches my eyes; he offered to send me away if I wanted to be with Grey.

Where does any of that leave us now?

“Stop playing games, Gidge. Let’s talk. What do you want out of all this?”

Anger surges through me, as it always does. It’s held my leash for so long that even though I’ve agreed to remove the collar of rage from around my neck, I jump when it tells me to. Crown might be a know-it-all bastard, but he’s asking a legitimate question. Deep breath in, deep breath out.

I finally deign to look at him, and I swear, the rough beauty in his face nearly staggers me. A memory prickles, a very specific one, where I’m looking down at our bodies, joined together, seamless, hard to tell where one of us ends and the other begins.

“It was all on you,” I whisper, looking away again. I finally set the scotch aside; I’ve got a nice buzz going. “All of the risk.” I look back at him, but as per usual, he’s nearly impossible to read. “Just like Queenie.” Here is where I start to get choked up. Here is where I find it difficult to breathe. “You put your life on the line for me, Crown. You were willing to die to protect me. My question to you is: what do you want out of all this?”

My question seems to surprise him for a moment.

When it seems like Crown isn’t going to answer, I grab the scotch bottle only to find it torn from my hand.

I look up.

“Don’t you dare try to lecture me,” I warn him, but then he’s throwing the bottle on the floor and my face is between his hands. I’m so startled that I jerk back, leaving room for him to put a knee between my thighs. He nudges my legs apart in a way that’s possessive, like he’s claiming his territory or something.

I’m too buzzed to remember how pissed off I am about that.

I lift my fingers to his face, dragging my nails down the day-old stubble on his cheeks.

“You better not be drunk, Gidge,” he warns me, but I just laugh. He knows I can hold my liquor.

“I didn’t regret it last time,” I breathe against his ear, licking up along the shell of it until he lets out a low growl, pushing me back onto the mattress. Our mouths work against one another as the old king bed creaks beneath us.

Whatever.

If anyone hears anything, they’ll assume it’s Beast. If they see him and think otherwise, they’ll make it his problem. And he, clearly, knows that Crown is in here with me.

“If you’re in here then …” I start, releasing Crown just enough that he can put some space between us with the sole purpose of staring at me.

“Because I told you that I was going to start working on my wants, didn’t I?” he queries dryly. “It’s not over yet.”

“Which part of it?” I quip, rubbing my aching body along the dirty denim that cups his muscular thigh. “Do you really think you can wrestle me away from Beast with that ruby ring of yours?”

That comment annoys the fuck out of him. He sits up suddenly, staring down at me with an inscrutable expression.

“If you wanted to be a part of the club, you should’ve picked me.” This line is delivered with the utmost seriousness; it oozes arrogance, reeks of confidence. “You would be the most popular club wife; every groupie in the clubhouse would envy you.”

“You should know, considering you fucked most of them,” I retort, pushing up onto my elbows. I rub my cunt against his leg again, and he frowns at me. “Dated them, actually. What were you up to? Searching for a wife of a more appropriate age?”

This time I’ve really done it. Crown’s eyes narrow to slits and he leans down, grabbing my wrists and pushing them into the bed. With him this close to me, it’s an assault. His scent is like violets and suede, luring me in toward a dangerous predator I have no business being with. Beast is dangerous, yes. Crown is calculating.

I would’ve bet the lives of myself, Reba, and Fem on him turning me in. Hunting me down himself. Facilitating a kill for Cat or Beast or Gaz.

I must not know him at all. Maybe no one does?

“What would you have rather had me do? Grab your sixteen-year-old ass and haul you to the courthouse with daddy in tow, let him sign the papers so we could get married?” Crown is holding me with one hand, studying my face, searching me for something that I can’t quite explain.

I look right back at him, and even if the quips are good, even if my pussy aches and begs for his touch, I let the whole truth show in my face.

Yes.

“Well, you snooze, you lose. You waited too long, Crown. Now you’re going to have to learn to share.”

His grip tightens on my wrists, and I squirm. It’s been years since we had sex. Years. I’ve had carnal dreams about this man, I won’t lie.

“I don’t enjoy sharing,” he says, his voice dark and dangerous, threaded through with libidinous intent.

“So they all say,” I retort, thrusting my hips up and grinding against his leg for a third time.

He grits his teeth, shoving his leg harder against me and drawing a ragged moan from my throat.

“You were born to be my wife, Gidge,” he says, and even if the words are ground out like an insult, I like them. A lot. “I could have you.” I said that to him once. Even then, I knew it was true. What I didn’t realize was that, even if we both ache and bleed and want for one another, it’s still going to be a challenge.

Fucking other guys is one thing. That’s what Beast’s given me permission to do.

Loving other guys? That’s … it isn’t something anyone in this culture would ever understand.

“And if I’m going to marry Beast anyway?” I start, and Crown makes this deep, guttural sound of frustration, so at odds with his usual put-togetherness. The false cheer he straps on for others, the way he did when he came over with my friends and swam in our pool. This, somehow, feels the most real of all his different sides.

“You are downright determined to piss me off tonight, aren’t you?” he asks, and then he goes to pull away from me. Releases my wrists. Slides his leg back. It hits home then: I crave him, and I can’t bear to let him go. I lunge up and wrap my fingers in his leather cut, my thumb brushing over the patch that says Vice President on it.

“You betrayed the club for me. Don’t you at least want something for your effort?” I breathe, putting my mouth right up against his, tasting him. He tastes so damn good. Like the promise of something I never believed I could have. That I still, in this moment, don’t believe I can have.

But I want it.

I want it so badly.

“Be my armor, Crown,” I whisper, the alcohol convincing me to be even bolder than I normally would. “I want to wear you like a shield, carry you into battle with me.” I suck on his lower lip, and he closes his eyes, his hands finding my hips and squeezing so hard that I let out a small sound. “That’s what I want out of all this. You. Them. The four of you—my dark knights instead of Cat’s. It’s what I’ve always wanted.”

He opens his eyes. This close up, I’m struck by the color of them. I’ve never seen another person with eyes like Crown’s, like lichen in the boughs of a pine tree, a soft muted green that catches the wind and rides it.

“We all want things we can’t have,” is his reply, but then he’s cupping the back of my head with a huge hand and kissing me in that infuriating way of his, like roses and champagne or some shit. Only, our roses are red simply because they’re dipped in blood. Our champagne is tainted with ash as it falls from the sky, the only remnants left of a once vibrant wood.

Crown takes control of the situation in a way that’s different from, say, Grainger. He isn’t just possessive—although there is possession in his touch—or domineering; he’s simply in charge. He is, without complaint or doubt or question, the boss.

“You’ll be president someday,” I breathe against his mouth, and he stills. His entire body goes stiff as I wrap my arms around his muscular neck, fingers teasing that gently waving hair of his. “And you’d do a much better job than Cat.”

“Gidget,” he warns me, and then he picks me up off the bed, cradling my ass with his hands. “Haven’t you been treasonous enough lately?” Crown sits down in the billiard green armchair in front of the fire, settling me on his lap. There’s just enough authority in his touch, in his voice, that I feel myself tilting toward him like he’s the sun. Just enough that I don’t feel the need to rebel, to fight, to scratch and scream and run. “Get on your knees, Gidge.”

Well, shit.

I hesitate briefly, but Crown fists his hand in my hair, forcing me to hold his gaze.

“I lied for you, yes. That doesn’t mean I’m going to let you run right over me. If you want to play games with grown men, then we’ll play. Get on your knees. This is the last time I’m going to ask.”

I give him a sharp look, my scalp stinging just enough that the energy in his grip travels straight through my Grainger-tainted blood to my clit.

“If you have to ask again?” I query, because I just can’t help myself.

Crown returns my look with one built of solemnity.

“Then I’m going to leave, and I’ll be one of Beast’s groomsmen and nothing more. Prove to me that you can follow orders, and I’ll consider making you a pretty, little soldier.”

Even though his words kill me, even though submission is not in my blood, I do as he asks. I figure I owe him this much, at least. His life is literally in my hands, resting on my scarred palm like a weapon. At any time, I could ruin him. Ruin him the way he ruined me that night.

“You’re not going to tell me to go to my room and keep quiet after this?” I murmur, my hands on his knees. It surprises me how much hurt there still is inside of me when I think about that night. For years, I’ve been telling myself that none of it mattered, that I didn’t care.

Except that I did. I do. I always will.

“You’re not going to be ashamed of me tomorrow?” I continue when he doesn’t answer. My eyes lift to his, but I don’t think he ever stopped watching me.

“I was never ashamed of you, Gidge,” he says with a long, tired sounding sigh. “I was ashamed of myself. Now, be quiet and take my belt off.” The edge of his mouth quirks up in a bit of a smile, a remnant of that vivid grin he gets sometimes, proof that he does know, somewhere deep down, how to be happy. “You didn’t need much of an invitation last time.”

With a huff—because I will always be contrary down to my bones—I lift up on my knees and reach for his belt, the silver buckle in the shape of a star, like something a sheriff might wear. Not for the first time, I wonder how someone as upstanding as Officer Reid became Vice President Crown.

“Lift my shirt up,” he tells me, just after I slide the belt from his loops with a hiss and toss it aside. “Kiss me all over, Gidge. Show me how much you appreciate what I did for you.”

“Fucker,” I murmur, but I can’t pretend I’m not excited by the sight of his abs as I push his t-shirt up and find hard planes and valleys waiting for my hungry tongue. There are tattoos on his hips that I never got the chance to study before. Now that I’m down here, face-to-face with them, I can see that one is a grave and the other is Lady Justice.

A shiver takes over me.

“Tell me your story?” I ask, just before I press my lips to Crown’s taut belly. A shudder ripples through him and he fists his fingers in my hair. There’s something to it, that grip, his control, his power, that makes my entire body flush warm with want.

“Not today,” he breathes out as I lick my way up, lifting his shirt as I go. Crown’s skin is just salty enough that he tastes wholly and completely male, but with an undertone of soap, like his sweat is fresh, like he showered for me first. “But maybe soon. If you’re a good girl.”

That gives me some pause right there. A good girl.

“I’ve never been a good girl, Crown.” My lips move against his skin as I talk, making him tense and groan as I punctuate the sentence with flicks of my tongue. “I’ve always been a very, very bad girl.”

He lifts my head back with his grip on my hair and looks down at me with what I like to call his ‘vice president’ stare.

“You’ll be a good girl for me,” he says, his voice strong and firm. Confident. He fully and utterly expects me to follow his rules. Crown releases my hair and then reaches down, undoing his jeans and taking the heavy, thick length of his cock into his hand. The tip glistens with pre-ejac, proof that Crown is as helpless to fight his desire for me as I am for him. “Suck me off, Gidge. Show me gratitude.”

The fingers of my right hand curl around the base of him, my eyes locked on his face, watching his reaction to my touch. It’s as if we’re weaving a dark spell together, something wanton, something ribald, something lascivious. A dance of devils.

Our gazes stay connected as I lower my mouth to his tip, pausing just a fraction of an inch away and wetting my lips with my tongue. It brushes against him, and he groans, pushing me down and sliding into my mouth. My teeth just barely graze him as he enters my throat, hips lifting up off the chair so that it creaks.

My right hand stays where it is, fisting around him so that when he thrusts into me, he doesn’t go too deep into my throat. My nails tap and tease, tracing across his skin as I bring my other hand up and heft the heavy weight of his balls against my palm.

My eyes flick to his yet again, but when I find him watching me, I close them. I don’t want to see that, the intense heat of his stare. Crown’s grip on my hair is firm, but his fingertips massage my scalp, encouraging me to take more of him, to draw him deeper into my throat.

The fire crackles behind us, casting a warm glow over the scene. Me on my knees, Crown in the armchair, the bookshelves towering over us on two sides.

“Move your hand,” he commands, just after I start to feel his thighs tensing on either side of me. Without waiting for me to comply, he reaches down and removes my right hand, guiding my head down on his shaft with his left. This is only my second time going down on a guy, but I’ve seen enough blow jobs in my time that I’m aware of how difficult this really is. You don’t just deepthroat a dude for fun; it takes finesse.

Inhaling through my nose, I relax my throat and fight my natural gag reflex, letting Crown guide my head the way he wants it. Up and down, up and down, deep, deep, deep.

“Oh, fuck, Gidge,” he murmurs, lifting his hips until he hits the back of my throat. “Right there.” Crown fucks my mouth, keeping my head still with his hand in my hair, lifting his pelvis up to meet my face. The closer he gets to coming, the tighter the muscles in his legs get, the stronger his grip on my hair. His last few thrusts are hard, almost brutal, and then he’s spilling hot seed into the back of my throat, pumping until his balls are empty, and collapsing back into the chair.

I gasp as he slides out of my mouth, swallowing and running my hand across my lips.

Crown doesn’t waste a second in grabbing me under the armpits and hauling me into his lap. I can hear the thundering of his heart as he presses a kiss to the edge of my hairline. The softness of his touch in contrast to the demanding way he just fucked my mouth is startling, but in a good way. In a way that makes me believe that there are butterflies in my belly instead of bats, that romance is real, that Crown actually gives a shit about me.

“Take your clothes off, sweet girl. All of them. Now.” He releases me after a moment and I scramble to my feet, pausing when I remember that I’m not the same Gidget from before, the one with pretty legs and perfect skin. This is … I’m different now. Crown notices my hesitation and lifts a brow in question. “Don’t tell me you obeyed just long enough to suck my dick? The rest of the night was going to be for you.”

“I just …” I start, but then I remember the way Giulia taunted me, shamed me, humiliated me. Or at least she tried to. I won’t let her ugly words weasel into my brain. With a lift of my chin, I slide my sweater over my head first, wincing a bit as the bandage pulls against my wound. I then slip the straps of my bra over my shoulders, spin it, unclasp it, let it fall.

The way Crown’s expression shifts when he sees my breasts … I find myself closing my eyes and shifting slightly, just to rub my thighs together, just to feel some friction where I need it most.

“More, Gidge. All of it.” He leans forward, watching me hungrily, his hands clenched around the arms of the chair so hard that he’s leaving dents in the fabric. “Show me what you did when you wrecked my bike.” He sits back up and gives me an annoying smirk. “Maybe we should go find my new one and you can thank me on the back of it the way you did before?”

I curl my lip at him, reaching my hands down to my jeans.

“The only part of the whole mess that I’m sorry about is the bike,” I murmur, undoing my pants and then taking a deep breath before shoving them down with my panties, revealing the ruined skin on my legs. The spot on my thigh that was infected is the roughest spot, a dip where the skin should be smooth. I assume over time that the scars will fade a bit more, but even if they don’t …

Sin isn’t the only one who appreciates me the way I am. Crown’s gaze is hungry and dark, and when he rises from his chair to stand over me, I look up to meet his voracious expression with one of my own. Carefully, reverently, he reaches up and traces a finger over the bandage covering my shoulder before taking my head in his hands. He kisses me with that punishing mouth of his, the one that commands armies of leather-clad demons on bikes. The one that dares stand up to Cat, the devil himself. The voice of the man who saved my life with a lie.

Crown’s right hand slides down the side of my neck, over my shoulder, down my arm, and then settles on my waist, leaving trails of fire in its wake. He continues to kiss me, drawing the moment out until it’s hot and sticky, until I’m trembling against him, my fingernails scratching at the leather of his vest. When he moves his hand again, he wastes no time in cupping my cunt with a firm, demanding grip.

“Should I tell you how every groupie I fucked was a stand-in for you? Should I tell you that no woman has ever had power over me the way you do?” He squeezes me, grinding the heel of his hand into my clit and making me raise up on my toes, my thighs parting to give him access.

“No. Don’t talk about other women—ever.” It’s the only command he allows from me, a laugh breaking from his lips just before he presses them to mine again, slipping a single finger into my waiting heat. A groan escapes us both as he teases the silky slickness between my legs, churning up that wild fire inside of me that Grey simply could not summon.

I could’ve married him, ruled the mafia. He offered me something I’d never been offered before: a chance at an equal partnership. A chance to rule. To command. But, as much as I love the guy, he couldn’t give me this.

He couldn’t give me passion.

I don’t want to rule the mafia; it’s the club that I want. I’m a barbarian, through and through. Tainted. Dressed. Reveling in ruin, in sin, wanting for glory.

I just hope that coming back here, settling in here, isn’t a mistake that I’ll regret.

I could ask the boys to spirit me away, get a normal job, live a normal life, fuck a normal man.

The thought is horrifying.

He adds a second finger, and I gasp, pressing my forehead into his chest. I’m a tall girl, but he’s much taller. I’m up on my tiptoes, offering myself, quivering, clinging to him.

Crown fucks my hungry cunt with slow, confident motions, like he has all the time in the world. Like we’re not at war with the mafia. Like I’m not engaged to Beast. Like I’m not in love with four different men.

Love.

The thought terrifies me. Love is both a strength and a weakness. Trust me, I’ve loved before and it destroyed me. Every day that I live without my sisters, I give something up, some little part of myself in sacrifice to the melancholy that threatens to overwhelm me. The only possible way that I can keep going is by collecting more. More memories, more passion, more … love. So I have to open myself up to more pain in order to move past the rest of it.

It’s dangerous.

More dangerous than stealing that bike, than stealing Grey, than living with the mafia.

Falling in love may well be the most dangerous thing I’ve ever done.

Crown holds me against him, drawing my wetness onto his hand, listening to the pulse of my body until I’m certain that my knees are going to give out and I’ll find myself crumpled on the floor, pleading and begging for release.

“On your hands and knees,” he murmurs against me, withdrawing his hand. He brings those fingers right to his lips, sliding them into his mouth and sucking my nectar off, twirling his tongue around them to make sure he gets every last drop.

There’s no resistance left in me. I just want this. I just … sometimes, I get so tired. Sometimes, I just want someone else to take care of my life, to guide me, to hold me. It used to be Queenie that did it, direct my anger at the right things, hug me when I needed it, scold me when I deserved it. But Queenie is gone and here Crown stands.

I do as he says, getting on all fours in front of the fire.

It takes a minute, but when Crown moves up behind me, I can feel his skin on every part of me. He must be naked, I think, with this flutter inside of me that demands I turn back and look.

“No.” Crown pushes my attention in the other direction, until I realize what, exactly, it is that he wants me to look at. There’s a glass door on the bottom half of the bookshelf in front of us, one that reflects the two of us back like a mirror. I can see him behind me, covered in tattoos that tell a story, his skin tanned from the sun, free from tan lines, as if he must get naked and bathe himself in its light every so often. “Watch me.”

He grips my hips hard enough that I gasp, yanking me into him, forcing my legs to spread around the hard, unyielding planes of his body. He hesitates for the briefest of seconds, but then whatever demons are holding him back, he banishes them.

The tip of Crown’s cock pushes against my folds, demanding entrance. In our reflection, I see his face, commanding but not unkind, tainted with … I don’t know, that special thing that makes Crown, Crown. He wants to love. Unlike me, he still believes in the possibility of romance without pain.

Just … I don’t know if he believes in the possibility of us.

Crown slides into me with this agonizing slowness, like he’s savoring the moment, committing it to memory, marking this passage through time with an exclamation point.

“You’re so tight,” he breathes out, thrusting hard and deep until he bottoms out inside of me, until I can feel him pushing the edges of my limits the same way he did with my mouth. He’s just big enough that he could hurt me if he weren’t careful, but not so big that he can’t get all the way in if he works me just right.

So that’s what he does, grips me by the hips and fucks me slowly at first, working up his speed, his depth, until I’m taking all of him. His balls slap against me as I groan, dropping my head as pleasure courses through me. I’m so full right now, full with Crown. With Calder.

“Calder,” I breathe, and he pauses, his fingers tangling in my hair and pulling my head back so that I’m forced to look at him in the reflection again. His eyes, they blaze. Something about hearing his real name seems to do it for him, and he wraps my hair around his fist, riding me like I’m his motorcycle, like we’re flying through the dark with nothing but headlights to guide our way.

“Your hair,” he says, pulling harder, rubbing his fingers against the dark strands. “It’s so soft. So fucking soft. I’ve always wanted to pull it, Gidge. For two years now, I’ve dreamt of this moment.” Crown tightens his grip and I groan, biting my lower lip as the sensations in my scalp mix with the feel of his hand on my hip, the thick, hard length of his cock buried inside of me.

“Calder.” I say it again, just to see his reaction, just to feel him squeeze me harder, pull my hair harder, fuck me harder. Crown rides me as I watch, sweat glistening on his tattooed chest, that tousled hair of his sticking to his forehead, his full lips swollen from our kisses, surrounded by chocolate stubble. “Calder, Calder, Calder.”

Each time I say it, the intensity ratchets up. I push my body back against his, slamming my ass into his pelvis, taking every inch of him inside of me. His cock strokes that fire, turns it into a raging inferno that blazes through me, making my muscles quiver, my elbows weak. I can barely hold myself up anymore, but it doesn’t matter. Crown keeps me there with his grip on my hair, forcing my back to arch, forcing me to give him exactly what he wants.

It’s such a relief to know that for right now, tonight, I don’t have to worry about anything. I give myself to him, let him fuck me so hard that tears prick the edges of my eyes, the beginnings of an orgasm making my lower belly muscles clench tight. I’m clamping down on him with my cunt, so hard that he has to force his way in, that he has to make space for himself.

The feel of his hard body, the rough brush of hair on his legs against my scarred ones, the way he murmurs my name over and over again, that pushes me to the edge. My body locks down so hard that Crown grunts, and I dig my fingernails into the rug so intensely that they hurt. I don’t care what I look like as I shudder and quiver, drenching his cock and balls with that honeyed sweetness that Grainger couldn’t get enough of.

Crown releases my hair and I collapse to the rug, panting and shaking and sweating.

He slides out of me, and I cry out, but then he’s lifting me into the air and cradling me against his chest. The world seems to blur around me as he deposits me on the bed, climbing between my shaking thighs and looking down at me. He says nothing, moving over me and sliding into my aching cunt yet again.

This time, he takes me as hard and fast as he wants, no limits, no warm-up, just fast and frenzied fucking. His body is a comforting weight, pressing me into the mattress, making the old bed groan and creak. Crown grabs the edge of the headboard for leverage, slamming his hips into me, his muscles tightening as his breathing deepens and grows more ragged.

He watches me, his eyes those of a starving man as he takes in my bouncing tits, my parted lips, my flushed face. With his right hand, he cups my left breast in a punishing grip, squeezing my nipple between the rough whorls of his fingertips. My back arches, pushing my body against his, melding us, blurring all of those hard lines that have been in place for years, those barriers, those mountains we’ve had to climb.

“Fuck, Gidge,” he grinds out, and then his body is tensing and he’s pumping into me, filling me with his cum as I groan and writhe, wanting more, knowing that there will never be a time when I say that’s enough. Always, always I will want to be ruined by this man.

He stays where he is after he finishes, breathing hard, eyes closed, hand still clenched around the headboard.

“Don’t worry,” I tell him, reaching up to touch the side of his stubbled face. “I’m on birth control.”

He opens his eyes then to stare at me, that edge of certainty, of brutal reality, etched into his gaze.

“I wasn’t,” he says, adjusting himself so that he’s lying next to me rather than on top of me. “Worried, I mean.” Crown yanks me against him, and tucks me close.

That’s how I fall asleep, in the arms of an outlaw, my mind wondering exactly what it was that he meant by that.