Nellie fusses over Reba, but the guys aren’t particularly happy to have her here.

“She’s a liability is what she is,” Crown murmurs, standing outside and watching Reba through the kitchen window. “Another loose cannon. Another flapping tongue.”

“She’s anything but a flapping tongue,” I growl at him, and he gives me a look. “You’re just mad because her presence keeps you from getting sex.” He throws me a look that says I’m not entirely off-base with that idea.

“More like, she’s a tool that can very clearly be wielded against you. She’s a person that Gaz is interested in, that knows about Gaz. She also can’t just live on the compound with you for companionship. That isn’t how things work here, Gidge.”

I put my hand on his big arm, and he heaves a sigh. He’s very clearly a sucker for me, something that I’m surprised my all-knowing sixteen-year-old self couldn’t figure out. These guys might have zero problem mowing down a crowd of mafia wedding guests, but they certainly have a difficult time resisting little old me.

“Then take me off the compound. You all must have houses, don’t you?” I ask dryly, and Crown closes his eyes for a moment, like I’ve upset him somehow. “Cat clearly doesn’t want me at our place because, well, security reasons. But what about you? Where do you live?”

“He owns a pretty little country house, set aside for his future wife,” Grainger says, his tone mocking. Sin is gone, dealing with the mind-numbing logistics of several hundred extra bikers living on the compound. Same with Beast. But more like, he’s out hunting people. This is what I now get to deal with: Calder and Cade, at war. “There aren’t many people involved with the club who think he bought it for anyone other than you.”

“Why don’t you shut your fucking mouth and go deal with the traitor that’s waltzing around the compound like he owns the place? Isn’t that your job, Cade, as the sergeant-at-arms? It’d be nice for me to see you earn your salary for once.” Crown shoots from the hip, but it’s very obviously a defense mechanism.

“One of these days, your big mouth is going to get you into trouble, and I won’t be around to watch your back,” Grainge hisses before he passes by me, pausing just long enough to get a handful of my ass and squeezing. I throw him a warning look that he ignores before heading into the kitchen to talk to Nellie.

“You didn’t really buy me a house, did you?” I ask, moving up close to Crown and watching as his moss green eyes slide my way. “It’s simultaneously romantic, and also creepy.”

“Your friend has to go,” he tells me, reverting back to his VP voice. I prefer the one he uses in the dark, the quiet groans and moans, the undeniable male sounds of pleasure and satisfaction. That’s what I want to hear. I want him broken open and vulnerable to me, giving me everything he has without reserve.

It’s just … I have a wedding to another man in six days, and I don’t know how to wrap my head around any of it.

“Where’s your house? Is it close by? Could I stay there with Reba?” I’m asking the questions, but Crown has already checked out, trying to move away from me toward the back door. I grab his arm and he turns suddenly to look at me, eyes darkening, his full mouth pressed into a thin line. “Crown, we’re past this sort of thing. We have to be past it or none of this will work out.”

He watches me for a moment, but his expression remains guarded.

“My house is technically inside the walls of the compound, but that doesn’t mean anything. Nowhere is safer than this, especially not when you’re a primary target.” He looks me over and I’m not sure, exactly, what it is that he sees, but he takes a step closer and ends up with his huge hand sliding along the side of my face, fingers tangling in my hair. “If I did buy you a house, I was waiting until you were a little older to give it to you.” My brow goes up, and he returns my stare with one of his own. “I didn’t want to fall in love with you, Gidge. In fact, I tried everything in my power to stop it.”

My throat gets tight. How the fuck do I process what he’s just said?

“In love with me?” I query back, because although it seems to be an unspoken thing, based on actions, it’s also nice to hear confirmation via words. They’re secondary, of course, but nobody begrudges being reminded that they’re loved. “How long were you planning on waiting?”

He frowns and looks away toward the house again, toward Reba and Nellie and Grainger just behind the glass, before glancing back at me.

“I figured you’d turn eighteen, run off somewhere, meet a guy.” Here he clenches his jaw slightly. “Break up with that guy. Maybe then I’d find you and ask you to have a drink with me, and you’d say yes. I have no fucking clue. It was a play by ear sort of a thing.” He tightens his grip in my hair, and my breath comes out in a rush. I sound excited. Anticipatory. Aroused. All of those things are true. “I did not expect the tour de force you’d become at sixteen. Jesus, this is fucked-up.” Crown says the words, but he doesn’t release me. Instead, he encourages me to move closer to him, and my palms end up pressed against his chest.

“You can stop hating yourself for it, you know,” I explain, running my palms up and over his shoulders, letting my hands rest on the leather of his cut, the very same cut I wore when he rode me into the sofa. “But if you want to keep placating me to make up for it, I’ll take it.”

“Gidge,” he warns, just before my lips press against the side of his neck. Now that I’ve gotten Reba back, the world is painted in different colors. War, I can handle. War, I will deal with. Just so long as I have my people around me. “You’ve got a guest, and if you keep touching me like that, I’ll forget all my manners.”

“Maybe that’s what you need?” I offer suggestively, lifting my eyes up to look at him through thick lashes. I’m not an idiot. I know exactly what he sees when he looks down at me. A young woman dressed head to toe in leather, her dark hair straightened into a glossy wave, red-brown eyes and long lashes, strong brows, and a pouty but very sharp mouth. “To forget?”

“Forget that you’re less than a week away from marrying another man?” Crown deadpans, and then he steps away from me. “Not likely, Gidge.” He sighs heavily and pushes some of that wavy hair back from his forehead. “You can announce to the girls that we’re yours; you can even believe it yourself. Doesn’t mean that this will work out in the end.” He looks away from me, toward the smoky sky and the ugly sun hidden in its sinister folds. “This right here”—Crown gestures between me and him—“it was never going to end like a fairy tale.”

He turns away and takes off, heading into the shadows of the garden.

He’s upset, I think. His dream was to present that ruby ring to a woman—to me, specifically—and claim his partner, his future, his chance at a family.

In a sense, no matter what happens, Crown’s dreams are dashed. Destroyed. Crushed to dust. The careful game he was playing with me has failed him.

He says we can’t end this story with a happily ever after. Who says we have to? My life will never be a fairy tale, regardless of how the rest of it turns out. My sisters are dead. My father is a monster. My brother is a creature from a nightmare. Even the men I love have hands drenched with blood, hearts of smoke and shadows, pasts dipped in pain and loss. They are not whole. Neither am I.

But I don’t need that.

I need someone with jagged edges, someone who can handle all my sharp points, my biting acidity, my nihilistic tendencies. Multiple someones, preferably. There is no telling what will happen tomorrow, if I’ll even live long enough to see much more of a life than I’ve got now. Same with the guys. Their jobs are dangerous; their lives are always hanging by a thin thread from the cruel, skeletal hand of fate.

I decide to follow after Crown, finding him near the edge of the manicured garden area, staring out at the woods. He briefly glances my way before refocusing back on the trees, the repeating bars of their trunks, the filtered sunlight.

“I would choke on a fairy tale,” I tell him, and that’s the truth. “Too sweet, too cloying. I was born ruined, Crown.”

He doesn’t respond to that, remaining distant, contemplative.

“Just before your sisters died,” he begins, closing his eyes. It seems, at first, as if he might be in pain. But no, that’s not it at all. He isn’t in pain: he’s mad. Furious. When he opens his eyes again, I can see that fury etched like lightning in his moss-colored gaze. “We knew there was a traitor in the club.” He looks at me then, studying me, as if deciding how ready I am to hear this.

“And you never found him?” I ask, thinking about Gaz. Crown shakes his head.

“We thought we did.” He pauses again and turns back toward the woods. I wonder where his house is. I know that the club has been working on chipping away at the surrounding properties, bringing one after the other under its control. Crown’s house could be somewhere nearby, maybe even within walking distance. “Cat was convinced of it.”

“You … killed the wrong guy?” I query and Crown looks down at the dirt beneath his feet. Is this where that man is buried? Are we standing on his grave? It’s impossible to walk around this compound and not dance on the grave of an angry soul, long buried and rotting.

“No, not the wrong guy.” Crown exhales sharply, still looking at the dirt, lost in memories. “Just not the only guy, I think. I knew it then, that we had more than one rat on our hands. The fact that you saw Gaz and Caper together means I was right. It’s a fucking coup.”

Crown looks up again, eyes blazing.

“So, Gaz was in on it even then?” I wonder, letting my brain chew on the idea of that for a minute. I do not like my brother, don’t get me wrong. He deserves to die for all of the things that he’s done. Still, it’s hard to imagine that he might … that he could’ve had something to do with Queenie’s and Posey’s deaths.

“I thought so. I even told your father.” Crown laughs and lets his head fall back. He’s a glorious shadow against the setting sun, a landmark, something solid to hold onto. I want to touch him so damn bad right now, but I’m worried he might pull away. So I wait. I bide. I ponder. “I’ve waited years to be able to talk to you like this.” He drops his chin down and turns to look at me. “I keep chastising you, Gidge, but only because you’ve got potential. If you were a man—”

I grit my teeth. I am so fucking sick of hearing how amazing I might be if I didn’t have a pussy. I hear it every single time my father looks at me. He wishes I were a boy. He’d give anything for that to be true. Why? Why does it matter? Unless I’m climbing in the ring with Beast, it shouldn’t.

I can do anything these men can do. More. They have no idea how desperate I am to prove myself.

Desperation breeds ingenuity.

“If I were a man?” I query and Crown turns to look at me. The force of his stare is staggering. I meet it head-on.

“It doesn’t matter to me,” he explains, holding out his palms in a placating gesture. “But it matters to the other men. It might always matter. You said you could see me as president someday. Maybe. Even then, I can’t change the entire culture of the club.”

“That’s not what I’m asking,” I reply, getting choked up and swiping a hand down my face. If I’d been born a man, I might’ve turned into Gaz, might’ve been spoiled, might’ve rotted on the branch. Instead, the club treated me like I was nothing; I made myself become something. My heart is crafted of iron and my resolve is impenetrable and endless. “I don’t need that. I need the four of you to trust me, to treat me like a human being. Be my armor against the rest of the club. Let me thrive like a fern beneath the shadows of the trees.” I walk away from Crown, my boots sinking into the softness of the forest floor. “If it were sunny, the fern wouldn’t do well. Under the trees, it thrives. Its function in the world is different, but it’s no less important.” I point at a large, lush fern growing out of a nearby trunk, knowing that I’m going out on a limb here with a ridiculous metaphor. Still, I can’t help it. My life is bathed in metaphors and prose; it’s the only way it makes any sort of sense. “This is a resurrection fern. It grows out of the tree, but it doesn’t hurt it. They have a symbiotic relationship.”

Crown pauses beside the tree, reaching up to run his fingers along the green fronds. I’m not tall enough to reach it, but he has no problem.

“You spin pretty stories, Gidge. I just don’t know if they function in the confines of reality.” He looks back at me, releasing the fern’s frond.

“Which part, Crown? Me participating in actual club business? Or the relationship with the four of you? We’d all have to give up something to make it work. I’ll admit, you guys would be giving up more than I would.” I sigh and rub at my face. It never occurred to me until now that … maybe I’m not worth it to them? They couldn’t bear to see me suffer for my actions with Grey, but that doesn’t mean they’re willing to spend the rest of their lives with one-fourth of a heart. An infinite and endless heart of shadows it might be, but still.

If I had to share any one of them with three other girls, I’d snap.

I’d make them choose me or else I’d walk.

How can I expect anything else from them?

Crown doesn’t answer me; that’s his way of saying he either can’t or won’t. At least not yet.

“Tell me more about Gaz,” I say instead, because I can’t work with partial information anymore. Crown’s been the biggest holdout; the other guys have been telling me whatever I need to know. But old rule follower over here? He’s a tough nut to crack.

In silent agreement, we start to walk. I allow Crown to lead us; he’ll know where guards are posted, where we’ll have the most privacy, the least chance of being caught.

“Back then, someone told the mafia about the casino. It’s a tribal casino, a great place to wash money. Native American tribes are sovereign nations; the US government doesn’t like to dig into their finances the way they might with a different business. It was quite literally the perfect place for us to launder money.” Crown licks the edge of his mouth in annoyance. “We weren’t involved in running the casino whatsoever. We gave them the funds, offered a substantial cut, and waited for a clean return. For the mafia to know about it, someone had to have talked.”

“Why couldn’t it have been someone from the casino?” I ask, trying to puzzle this out. “They could’ve approached the mafia and offered a deal on their own.”

“That’s what I thought,” Crown says, pausing again and tucking his hands in his pockets. “That’s why we … interrogated a few of them.” He stares right at me, as if daring me to protest, to be sick, to run as far and as fast as I can. But I already did that. I ended up in hell. They saved me from it. Here I stand. Yet I know that if I asked for it, Crown would put me on a plane and watch as it took off, never to return again.

They’d all let me go, wouldn’t they? If I really wanted that.

“So someone in the club blabbed?” I continue, thinking about Gaz. That would be just like him, to do something like that. Was he drunk? Was it for clout? Was he looking for money? “Then what?”

“Gaz is the one who told us where to find Kian,” Crown offers up, still watching me, still waiting for a reaction. My blood aches and burns, but I keep it together. He’s waiting to see if I can do it, if I can rein in my temper. “You know that Gaz used to take Queenie to the casino, right?”

I … I knew my sister had her own life. She did things she never told me about. But going to the casino? With Gaz? It isn’t really all that surprising. Queenie believed in our older brother in a way that Posey and I never did.

She loved him in a way we never did.

She trusted that there was good in him.

And he … he got her killed?

“That’s where she met Kian,” I say, testing out the idea. It makes sense. It all makes horrible, horrible sense, even if I don’t want to believe it. “If Gaz happened to meet someone from Grey Wolfe, and they offered him a deal …”

Whether he was working with them at that time or not doesn’t matter.

He’s most definitely working with them now.

He was on his way to get Reba last night.

For what purpose?

“Gaz was a traitor then, just like he is now. But how the fuck do I tell your father that without putting you at risk?”

“Us at risk,” I clarify, and Crown lets a heavy frown cross his gorgeous mouth.

“The drugs,” he starts, sighing again. He looks so tired. I feel responsible for that, but if he won’t let me help him, what can I do? He has to want me by his side. “You asked why you had to do that.”

“It doesn’t matter anymore,” I start, but it does. Crown knows that. He grabs my chin in his strong fingers, and even though the move could be called patronizing, I don’t care. His fingertips burn my skin where they grip me, as hot and flagrant as the wildfires raging in the distance.

“The Grey Wolfe Mafia cooks up their own drugs, Gidget. They invent new drugs. The underboss, Ivan Wolfe, is famous for the designer drugs he sells to the upper-class in Ashbury. In Eugene. Portland. Seattle.” Crown slides his hand down to rest on the side of my neck, and I close my eyes against the press of his palm on my pulse. “They were selling that cocaine up and down the West Coast, peddling it as some miracle drug. But only in specific areas, to specific people. They were using it to slaughter anyone that had ties with us: politicians, the chief of police, suppliers.” Crown continues sliding his hand down, over my shoulder, my arm, making me shiver. “We needed to know what was in it.”

“And me giving it to a bunch of kids …” I start, trying to push past the feeling of his heavy hand on my waist. I want so much more. I want everything. I want Crown to push that fire into me until I’m burned to ash and drifting on the wind. Even now, I can feel it settling on my painted mouth, bits of ruined things, people, homes, trees; it’s blowing in the wind, and I can taste it on my tongue when I breathe deep.

“We have a friend in the FBI. He made a suggestion. If a bunch of kids died from bad drugs, they’d need to have them tested. We could find out what, exactly, was in them.”

“But nobody died …” I hazard, thinking back on the day that I left. Sin’s words sound in my mind.

“Your dad wanted them all dead. But Crown argued against it. Nobody’s dead.”

“We cut their product with some of ours; I don’t like to kill kids, Gidget.”

“It’s Gidge,” I choke out, and then Crown is putting his mouth against mine, smearing lipstick and ash between us.

“You two want to ride off on a white horse?” a caustic voice asks, and we break apart just in time to see Grainger striding through the trees toward us. I wonder how much he heard. How long he’s been watching us. His brown eyes find mine before turning back to Crown. “We’ve got church in a half hour.”

Church. Not the religious kind. Oh no. The boys’ club, ‘let’s meet to discuss bro business’, sort of church. It’s the term all MCs use to refer to official club meetings.

Crown starts to pull away from me, but I curl my fingers under the waistband of his jeans. Grainger notices, eyes tracking the movement.

“A half hour is plenty of time,” I suggest, and Crown makes this frustrated sound, like he’s falling right into temptation that he knows will stain his skin with sin for the rest of eternity. That’s what I want. I want to stain and sin with them forever.

Cade scowls and storms over to stand beside us.

“You chased all the groupies away,” he tells me, looking me over with that sharp, horrible face of his, the one that I want to wake up to someday. I want to fuck him all night, and sleep beside him, see what it’s like to wake before he does and study his peaceful face. “You gonna do something about that?”

The other night, they said they were testing me, that they wanted to see if I could handle the responsibility of carrying the leashes to four demons. Well, I can. I will. Most importantly: I want to.

I lower myself to my knees, wondering if they might stop me. If one of them might walk away.

Since Crown is the most likely to take off—Grainger is pretty solid when sex is on offer—I undo his pants first, letting the heat of his cock warm my palm. I give the tip a lick before reaching over to undo Grainger’s pants.

He grits his teeth at me, but he doesn’t move. Neither of them do. They don’t look at each other either. Only me. Just me.

Slowly, languorously, I sweep my tongue over my palm, letting saliva and lipstick smear across my skin as the men watch. Once it’s lubed up to my satisfaction, I curl my fingers around the base of Grainger’s cock. I stroke him while I do the same to my other hand, taking Crown in the same way.

It’s exhilarating, to have them both towering above me, their competing scents mixing together in a musky cloud that blurs the lines between reality and fantasy. In reality, I cannot have them both. In my fantasy, they’re inextricably mine. Forever. Always.

My lips drop to Crown’s tip, pressing a kiss right over the pearly bead of pre-cum. My tongue flicks out, cleaning it off as the fingers on both my hands stroke and caress. I lower my mouth to Crown’s shaft, sweeping my tongue around him and drawing a male sound of satisfaction from his throat. When he drops a hand to my hair, I pull away, redirecting my mouth to Grainger’s cock instead.

I try to do the same to him, but he thrusts deep as soon as my mouth is open, dragging the velvety heat of his cock along my tongue. I suck hard, grazing my teeth across his skin as I draw back. He tries to keep me there, but I dig my nails into his dick and he growls at me.

Back to Crown I go, sliding my mouth down the length of him, comparing the taste of the two men. I love them both. I want them both. Like an ice cream cone with multiple scoops. I lick and suck, back and forth, back and forth, until they’re both trying to tangle their fingers in my hair and keep me.

I draw back, squeezing them both with my fists, jerking them off with hard, demanding motions.

My eyes trail up, searching Crown’s face first. His eyes are half-lidded, lips parted, his attention a searching, questing thing, like he’s actually considering if he might be able to do this, share his woman with another man.

Grainger … well, Grainger is lost in the heat of sex. As much as I was burned by him, I think he was burned by me, too. I hurt him when I took Sin that night. Part of me wonders if I’d told Sin to leave, and I’d played into Grainger’s hands, would we have gotten together?

Or is he too impossible? Too much of a bastard? Too much of a whore?

The way he stares at me, licking his lips, running his own hand up his belly and under his shirt, like he wishes it were me touching him there, makes me wonder. Do I have him already? Is he mine?

I work both men up toward their own orgasms. When I see one of them getting ahead of the other, I slow down, relax my grip. Their sacs tighten, their muscles tense.

“Gidge, I’m warning you,” Crown says, but I don’t care. I know what I’m doing. At least he’s offering me a chance to change my course; Cade would shove his cock down my throat if given the chance.

I feel like I’ve got them both on the same rhythm, but Crown surprises me by coming first, his cock throbbing as hot liquid pulses out and onto my face, my lips, drips down to my chin. Cade, because he’s a horrid asshole, grabs my hair and turns my head, shoving himself deep and blowing his load on my tongue.

I swallow him down, even as I’m cursing him out in my head.

“Goddamn it, Grainger,” Crown snarls as Cade pulls away from me with a guttural groan. He doesn’t look at all ashamed of himself as he zips up his jeans. The vice president, on the other hand, takes his shirt and swipes it over my face to clean me off.

It’s almost cute. Almost, because even as he’s cleaning me off, he’s being a rough, controlling dick.

I pull away from him and use the trunk of the tree to get to my feet.

“No other woman will hurt you the way I will,” I tell them both, knowing that I’ve got to run my ass in the house and upstairs to the shower before Reba sees me. “But no other woman will hurt this good either.”

Cade meets my eyes but says nothing, frowning hard as he crosses his arms over his chest.

“You can’t use sex to sway me,” Crown says, and I know that’s true. But I also know that he loves me. He said as much just now—with words as well as actions.

He told me what I needed to know, about Gaz, about the casino, about the drugs.

The Grey Wolfe Mafia really is out to obliterate the club, aren’t they?

I’ll personally see to it that they don’t.

Who knew that I’d be defending something I hate? But also that, in many ways, I love.

Love-hate, what a splendid toxin.