The party starts soon after I hear the first sound of an approaching bike, a single rider that bleeds into a cacophony of howling spirits. The compound turns into a raging inferno with loud music, scantily clad women, and men in leather. There’s booze aplenty. Cocaine. Weed. Gossip.
“He told me he liked to be pegged. Have you ever heard of that?” one of the groupie girls asks another. I’m sitting near them for now while Sin politicks, Crown follows Cat around, and Beast is off watching my brother. It’s Grainger who’s watching me now.
“Pegging is when you wear a strap-on and fuck a dude in the ass,” I tell her loudly, leaning close to be heard. The girl’s eyes get wide before flicking back to Grainger. She hurriedly turns away, and I smile.
“You just had to go and open your big mouth, eh Gidge?” he taunts, standing far too close to me. “By the way, you never asked me if I wanted to be your fuckboy bitch.”
“You never asked me if I wanted to be deflowered and left alone two years ago.” I turn to glare at him, knocking my heels against the railing I’m sitting on. The asshole cannot take his eyes off my leather-clad legs or the plunging neckline of my top. “Sin told me all about it, how you guys agreed to wait until after I graduated to pursue me.”
Cade just stares at me like I’ve lost my damn mind.
“You would’ve preferred it if Crown snatched you up then? Married your sixteen-year-old ass and got you pregnant? Don’t be stupid.”
I slide off the railing and turn to him, using the height from my heels to put me at least a little closer to his face.
“Me? You’re the one who keeps acting like he isn’t interested when, clearly, he is.” I turn and fling my arm out in the direction of the girls behind me, the ones scoping the crowd for available men. “If you want a club-whore, go on then. Pick one out. Sleep with her. And then you can forget about ever having anything with me.”
I take off and leave him to follow after, moving over to the edge of the deck and down the stairs, into the thick of the party where most of the drinking and dancing is occurring. The music is so loud that it drowns out my thoughts.
Once I’ve got a beer in hand, I look back to see if Grainger’s still following me. He is, selecting a spot about fifteen feet away. Also, he’s talking to a girl.
I grit my teeth.
“If you let him behave like that, he’s gonna keep on doin’ it,” a voice says from the shadows beside me. If I were anyone else, I’d jump at that. Only, I know who it is: Beast. My Beast, in particular.
I sip my beer and watch as Grainger throws on the charm the way he did to me in the clubhouse bathroom that one time, when he hadn’t yet realized who I was.
“I knew as soon as I saw you that night that you had to be mine. Period. Nothing else was acceptable.”
He’s baiting me right now, and I refuse to rise to the occasion, downing my beer and placing the bottle aside for a prospect to clean up. Normally, it’d be the hang-arounds doing that type of menial work, but Cat’s closed down the compound. In and out privileges are strictly controlled, and nobody’s allowed on the premises but for members, their families, and prospects. No dealers, no contract workers, no hookers, no hang-arounds.
“You think I should reel him in some?” I ask as Beast moves up to stand beside me and hands me another beer. I want so desperately to ask where he’s been, if he’s found anything, if he knows where Reba is. But we don’t need words, me and Beast. I know that he’d tell me any and all of those things if he thought I needed to know. I glance back at Beast’s face, impassive but contemplative, always thinking, always calculating. The light from the bonfire paints him yellow and orange. “Don’t you want me to dump the rest of them?”
Beast crosses his arms over his chest, like he’s actually giving some level of thought to my question.
“I want you to pick me,” he repeats, glancing back at Grainger. “That’s all that I want.”
He moves away, and I resist the urge to scream. What the flipping hell does that actually mean anyway?
I let him disappear in the crowd, knowing full well that wherever he is, he can still see me. I meant to confront him about the ‘pact’ thing, but as per usual, he distracted me with that annoyingly affable stoicism of his.
My eyes swing back to Grainger. No part of me actually believes he’d pick up a groupie tonight. First off, he’s on guard-duty. In fact, only these four men are ever on guard-duty. I’m assuming they’re volunteering for the positions; my father wouldn’t normally waste his officers on such a menial task.
Second, I … had some sort of misplaced faith in him?
When he reaches out and tucks the girl’s hair behind her ear, that’s when I really start to get angry. Slamming my beer down on the table next to me, I head straight that way, past a group of out-of-towners and get my very first glimpse of the girl’s face.
It’s Dena Muller.
I come to a stop about three feet away from her. Currently, she’s still too engrossed in Cade to pay much attention to me, but as soon as her blue eyes swing my way? Shock. Disbelief. Malice.
“You,” she hisses at me, but she must know better than to start shit with me while on club property. I mean, Dena’s always been an idiot, but she has some level of social decorum.
“Me,” I confirm as Grainger’s brows draw together and he glances between the two of us. “You didn’t think you’d run into me here?” My voice gets disturbingly dark, and I recognize that I’m about two wrong words away from punching Dena in the face. “My father is the club president.”
Dena shrugs her shoulders and tosses her glossy hair, giving me a look.
“I came to a party one night after you fucked all of us up with those bad drugs,” she says, watching me but reaching up a hand to touch the front of Cade’s chest. I blink through the angry haze in my vision and try to focus on what she’s saying. I have yet to learn what the plan behind me destroying what little reputation I had with my classmates might’ve been. Still, even though I was always an outcast with Reba as my only true friend, I fit in in my own way. People liked seeing me, liked having me at parties.
Now, all of that is over. My senior year ruined and cut short. I feel a bit like I’m drifting all of a sudden and reach up to rub at my forehead.
“And now what? You’re a club-whore?” I ask, and Dena frowns at me.
“I’m eighteen,” she explains, as if I care. She has a fancy lawyer for a mother, and a million opportunities out in the world just waiting for her, and she’s here. I feel a bit like Sin must. Wanting her to leave. Feeling sorry for her. Being jealous. “I can do whatever I want.”
“You can get your hand off of my fucking man,” I tell her, and Cade laughs at me.
“Your man?” he queries back, and I look him dead in the face.
“Do not play with me tonight, Cade Grainger,” I warn him as Dena blinks stupidly between the two of us. With another smirk, a cocky laugh, and a shake of his head, he lifts up both hands, palms out like he’s surrendering.
“Whatever you say, Gidge,” he mocks, gesturing at Dena. “She’s your friend; do what you want with her.” It’s a lame excuse, a way for him to back off of Dena without revealing his real hand: he was never interested in her in the first place.
“Dena,” I say, affecting the voice and wisdom of a much older woman. “I want you to go home.” I turn to Grainger and give him a look. “How is she even here? I thought new girls were banned from the property?”
“I brought her here.”
I turn to see Gaz making his way through the crowd. He is most definitely not pleased to see me here; it’s as if we keep ruining one another’s plans. He killed that girl, that poor Rhea Bundy. My brother strangled her, and here he is with a new girl not a week later. I want to kill him. I so very, very badly want to kill this man.
“I was actually just asking Dena about that very fact,” Grainger says, and his smarmy smile turns into a harsh dark line. His eyes flash with rage, and I can see that he, too, would very, very much like to kill Gaz. “She was telling me all about her association with you.” Cade taps his fingers against the light pole beside Dena. She’s still leaning back against it in her short, pink dress, her blond hair shiny and perfect. She hasn’t quite figured out what a dangerous situation she’s in.
Also … Grainger. That fucker. He’d figured out that Dena’s presence was sus long before I did. He wasn’t flirting for any purpose other than milking information out of her.
Gaz is staring at us both with that narrow-eyed look of his.
“What does it matter if I bring a girl in for a party?” my brother asks, staring his sergeant-at-arms down in a way that tells me that he isn’t afraid of Cade Grainger.
But he should be.
“It matters because I said only people affiliated with the club could be on the compound today,” Grainger tells him, glancing down at Dena before looking up at me. This is no coincidence. One glance at Gaz confirms that for me. He smiles, and the expression sends chills down my spine.
Now I know why Beast is back. He followed Gaz here.
“Anything of yours is now mine,” Gaz says, reaching out to touch my hair. Grainger snatches his hand before my brother can touch me, squeezing it so hard that Gaz actually grunts in pain and Dena’s shiny pink lips part in surprise. “It’ll only take one word from me to ruin everything you’ve got going here. Even Beast can’t save you from the truth.”
He yanks his hand from Grainge’s grip—but only because the latter allows it.
“You want the girl?” Gaz asks, gesturing at Dena. “You can have her.”
He takes off as I curse under my breath and shove at my forehead with the heel of my hand.
“We need to get Dena home,” I tell Grainger, but he’s so focused on Gaz that he isn’t paying much attention to me.
“Where is Reba?” Dena asks me, almost conversationally. But there’s an accusation in her voice that says she suspects my involvement in this. “She won’t answer any texts; she hasn’t been at school. Nobody I know has seen her.”
“Maybe she finally acted on the seething hatred she’s had for you for years?” I say, but I’m lying. Reba doesn’t hate anyone except maybe Grainger, Gaz, and Cat. She definitely doesn’t hate Dena. But I sort of do. “Let’s go.” I take her arm, and she tries to pull away from me.
“I came here to party,” she says, but I just laugh, dragging her across the pavement toward the parking lot. I can see Crown from here, talking in a low voice to several other men. He notices me as I approach, pausing his conversation to lift a brow.
“This is Dena. You’ll remember her from the pool party at my house that one afternoon. She needs to get home.” I yank Dena forward, bringing her ear near my lips. “If I ever see you on this compound again, I’ll fucking kill you. If I ever hear about you seeing my brother, Gaz, again, I’ll fucking kill you. Do you understand all of that?”
She balks at me, but there’s an undeniable menace to my words that can’t be denied.
As well as a dollop of social skills, Dena must also have a very good sense of self-preservation.
“I didn’t know he was your brother!” she scoffs as I hand her over to Crown.
Part of me feels bad for intimidating her, but … even though I said I hated her—as well as Chardou and Amiya, Dena’s pretty cronies—I don’t. I’m worried about them. I’d rather not have another soul on my conscience. Stay away from all of this, I urge her silently.
Crown waves the other men away and then glances over at Grainger as he comes up behind me.
“And how, exactly, did she get on the property?” he asks, but Cade’s already cursing and shaking his head.
“Gaz,” he growls out, pacing back and forth for a moment. He lifts his head to stare at Crown, eyes flicking down to Dena.
“I’ll call an Uber or something,” she whines, but Crown just lets out a tired exhale.
“I’ll find a trustworthy guy to get this one home.” He gives his brother a sharp look. “I’m guessing you’re not able to deal with Gaz for the time being?”
Grainger gives a sharp shake of his head and Crown grunts, dragging Dena away with him.
“Gaz brought Dena here to intimidate me,” I say, putting my hands on my hips and looking back toward the party.
“He picked her because of her association to you, but really, he brought that girl here to prove to me that he could. And that I’d do fucking nothing about it.” Cade grits his teeth and closes his eyes for a moment. “If you got in touch with your shitty, little mafia friend, you think you could find more information out about Gaz?”
I give Grainger a look as he opens his umber eyes to stare at me. After a moment, I give a short, brief nod. Grey will know. But how do I contact Grey? How do I find him? If I don’t, then Gaz will continue to do whatever it is that he’s doing.
Then the club could … lose to the mafia?
The idea of it infuriates me.
I might not be willing to hurt Grey, but I sure as shit am not allowing the organization responsible for my sisters’ murders to decimate the club that these four men belong to.
Because if it goes down in flames, they’ll ride to their deaths on chrome stallions right along with it.
And I … I will follow.