Yet.
I was thinking that being handcuffed to the bed in my underwear meant it wouldn’t stay that way for long.
I was not getting raped. I would die first.
I had to get out of there.
He wasn’t in my bedroom, but I wasn’t stupid enough to think he was gone.
The thump of a bass from my sound system in the living room told me he was still in the house. Somewhere. My instincts told me that too.
Men like that were unpredictable. Men who valued women little more than slaves and thought beating them was acceptable. Bullies. Just like the ones in high school. If you stood up to a bully, most of the time they moved onto weaker prey. They were cowards at the end of the day.
But there was a small percentage of those bullies who wouldn’t move on. Who refused to be bested, to become the weak one. So they bided their time, made it their mission to make you pay. So much so that it consumed their minds and they would do whatever it took to get their victory. With little thought to consequences.
Kevin obviously thought his victory was raping me, degrading me, showing me that he was in control, and then killing me. The consequences of that were a slow and painful death if my family ever found out.
So I guessed the killing me portion would go toward making sure I couldn’t point the finger at him, since none of my family knew about him. I had given him the ingredients to get away with murder. They wouldn’t be looking into my life if I turned up brutalized and dead.
They’d be looking into their own.
Into their history.
To a time when this had happened before. To my beautiful friend.
And that time it had been on the club. They’d assume that would be the case this time. And they’d be so blinded by hate that they’d most likely start a war. And there would be blood. On both sides.
Like before.
I would not let that happen.
I would not let any blood be spilled because of me. Not my family’s. Not my own.
Luckily, being a biker princess meant my bedroom may have been home to kick-ass furnishings, almost the entirety of Sephora’s makeup department, and some well-cared-for secondhand designer footwear, but it also held an arsenal that rivaled that of a small-town police station.
Though most of it wasn’t within reach since both of my hands were handcuffed above my head on my wrought-iron headboard. I craned my head upward, ignoring my battered body’s painful protest.
“Man, he used my own handcuffs? What a dick,” I whispered to myself.
I knew I only had a limited amount of time before Kevin came back from whatever he was doing, so I didn’t screw around. There was a gun taped underneath my bed on my left side, but I was handcuffed slightly to the right and I wouldn’t reach it.
The knife underneath my mattress on the right it was.
I shimmied awkwardly, my hands not giving much in the handcuffs. Mostly because I was an idiot and didn’t get the soft erotic kind. No, I had to go authentic.
Yes, I was aware that I needed a therapist to dissect that.
My body screamed at me as I moved, my ribs so painful I almost vomited.
I didn’t, of course. I was a Fletcher.
By birth, I was a Templar.
More importantly, I was Rosie.
I bit my lip as I tried to work my hands downward enough to reach my mattress. The swirl of my headboard that I’d thought so fucking artful was what hindered me, stopping at least six inches short of where I needed to be.
Frustrated tears streamed down my face.
“Fuck!” I hissed.
“Not trying to get away, are we, babe?” Kevin asked pleasantly.
My eyes snapped to him. He was in his underwear—boxer briefs. Scattered tattoos decorated his muscled body, the one I’d used to excuse all of his hideous behavior. Before he’d started hitting me, of course; no amount of muscles in the world could excuse that.
I focused on the gun dangling from his left hand as he walked toward me.
Sauntered.
Like he was trying to seduce me.
I had to get the gun from him if I had any hope of surviving.
“Get away?” I parroted as he approached the other side of the bed. “Of course I’m trying to get away, dipshit. The thought of you raping me would have me gnaw my own fucking hand off if I could reach it,” I hissed through my teeth.
I knew it wasn’t smart. Being docile, vulnerable, and weak would’ve been his preferred version of me. It definitely would’ve stopped him from backhanding me so hard that my head snapped back painfully against the iron of my headboard.
But I wasn’t docile. And I certainly wasn’t weak. And no way was I ever going to act like anyone’s preferred version of me. Especially not my would-be rapist and murderer.
As I recovered from the hit, he positioned himself on top of me, pressing against all my bruises so his face was inches from mine.
“You’re a fucking stupid bitch, you know that?” he rasped, his voice stinking of Jack.
My fucking Jack.
“You think because your brother is the president of some motorcycle club that you’re untouchable? You think you can act how you want? Talk to me like that without fucking consequences?”
The hand not holding the gun to my temple traveled down to squeeze my nipple roughly and painfully.
It wasn’t the pain that had me blinking back tears, it was the degradation of it all. The helplessness. He was victimizing me.
“You’re about to see consequences,” he whispered, his mouth at my neck. His hand continued downward, leaving trails of pain and disgust in its wake until he reached my panties.
He didn’t hesitate, ripping at them, his hands rough and painful as he groped me.
As they went inside.
Violated me.
It took every single ounce of my strength not to let my tears fall. Not to squeeze my eyes shut. Not to beg.
Instead, I met his stare, unblinking, unyielding, challenging.
“You’re going to die,” I croaked, my throat raw, my mind itching to escape the present, the horror of what he was doing. What he was going to do.
I’d witnessed it.
The women in my life going through stuff like this.
Laurie went through this.
Bex went through this.
Laurie died.
Bex survived.
I’d always been so angry at Laurie’s fate. Cursed every deity out there.
Now, as I was experiencing only the horrific appetizer of what she was exposed to, I was wondering who was luckier, Bex or Laurie.
Because as Kevin continued to violate me, my body was not my own anymore. The one sacred thing that was ours in this world was being trashed and tarnished. Not just my physical body but my mental one.
I wanted to be like those strong women survivors you read about, who talked about their body being taken but not their soul.
I’d always thought I’d be one of those women.
Always considered myself strong.
That was until the second his fingers went inside. Clutching at my soul and shredding it. Dirtying it. Showing me just how fucking vulnerable it was.
“You’re nothing,” he hissed in my ear, pressing down on me.
He moved and his hand wasn’t inside anymore. It was yanking at my panties, and I knew his intention.
“Fuck you,” I whispered.
Then I lifted my hips with a rush of adrenaline that gave me enough strength to buck him upward and backward, obviously not expecting the sudden fight.
I didn’t hesitate to kick at him, the heel of my bare foot hitting the bottom of his chin, the resulting crunch of bone sending waves of satisfaction shooting through my body.
Whether it was intentional or whether the shock and pain caused him to squeeze, Kevin fired the gun at the same time he grunted a wet, pained sound and tumbled off the side of the bed.
Luckily for me, the way his hand was positioned meant that the b
ullet went upward, into my ceiling, instead of horizontal, into my forehead.
I hoped that gunshot was enough to get the cavalry coming.
I was friendly with my neighbors, older couples and a young family. Not people who I’d want to endanger themselves by intervening. But they were also born and bred here, which meant they knew who to call.
No, not Ghostbusters.
Or the cops.
My heart clenched at that thought.
Luke.
In that little part of my brain that I pretended I couldn’t hear, I’d been thinking about him. Replaying all of our moments. Regretting being such a fucking coward. Thinking about choosing a man who would rape and kill me because I was trying to escape the man who would die for me.
That was not to be thought about.
Survival was top of the list at that juncture.
Kevin scrambled up, blood pouring from his mouth.
“Yu-ooh bitch,” he spluttered, blood and bits of his tongue he’d bitten off flying onto my white comforter.
He took a shaky step forward at the same time he lifted the gun. His eyes glinted with something that had me thinking my survival was not looking good right now.
“Yoo-u’re dead. You’re fucking—”
The gunshot cut him off.
Just not the one I was expecting. Not the one that splattered my own brains across my comforter.
Just his.
I blinked against the blood and brain matter covering me, against the ringing in my ears.
A figure rushed toward me, muffled shouts of concern addressed at me.
I expected the figure who’d just murdered a man to save me to be wearing a Sons of Templar cut.
I did not expect it to be wearing a uniform.
I did not expect it to be Luke.
But that little part of me, that part that I had no choice but to listen to, she was more relieved than anything else in the world.
He’d just killed someone for me.
He’d just ruined his fucking life for me.
He wasn’t clean anymore.
We’d be tainted together.
There might’ve been a small chance for us now that we were both sinners.
So why didn’t it feel better?
Luke
The gunshot had paused everything and also sped it all up. Not the one that came from his gun but the one before that. That had come from Rosie’s.
As she’d killed a man right in front of him.
As she’d killed a man for her family.
Put a mark on her soul for them because, in her mind, she had no other choice.
He hated her a little in that moment, for chipping off another piece of herself, amassing more demons for her to fight against, sacrificing part of her peace so her family could have justice.
Revenge.
He hated her a little, but he’d never loved her more.
And that made him hate himself.
Because he didn’t feel disgust watching her murder someone. At her doing it because she knew he wouldn’t arrest her.
That was Rosie.
She would never sit around and wait for someone to solve things for her. Save people for her.
She’d save everyone. Even if it killed her. Wouldn’t blink.
She was the strongest person in that club. She was that club.
He’d known it all along, of course. Just hadn’t admitted it to himself. Hadn’t let himself. Had some warped fucking idea that he’d save her from it.
His version of saving her was her version of him fucking destroying her.
He saw that now. In her eyes after she’d killed that man. He was a despicable human. Luke knew that. Rosie would never end someone’s life if they had even a shred of humanity lingering in their soul.
That didn’t make it right.
Not Luke’s version of right, at least.
But Rosie’s was different.
Didn’t mean it was wrong either.
He saw it all, all his fucking mistakes in that lingering moment that paused after that gunshot. Then it sped up. And he found himself in his cruiser, driving away.
Like his father had that day.
For different reasons, perhaps.
But he got it now. Why his father did it.
And fuck if he wasn’t furious at himself for punishing his father too.
He’d driven around. Not to the station, though he fucking itched to walk in there, hand in his gun and badge and be done with it all. Those hours were a blur of running through the years, inspecting how majorly he’d fucked up while believing he was doing the right thing.
Believing that trying to end the Sons of Templar was somehow a noble cause.
And maybe it had been. At the start, when they were running guns, when there were dead bodies littering the battle lines of their war. When Laurie was murdered.
When he’d had to sit in front of two innocent people and tell them they’re even more innocent only fucking child had been brutalized and then murdered. Because of no other crime but loving the wrong person.
But even then, his cause, his noble fucking cause, had poisoned into a vendetta.
And when the club started going legit, when they started learning from their mistakes, when they started to try and live their version of a normal life, that’s when he should’ve stopped.
Should’ve shrugged off his hate, buried his hypocritical self-righteousness and inspected his own mistakes. Tried to learn from them.
But he didn’t.
Somehow along the way, he’d become worse than the men he’d considered criminals.
“Fuck!” he roared, slamming his hands on his steering wheel.
He’d been driving around like a coward for all these hours because he didn’t know where to go.
He still hadn’t learned from his fucking mistakes.
It was like that day when he was a kid all over again, his dad driving the cruiser away, abandoning the girl.
But this time he had control. This time he didn’t have to abandon the girl.
He couldn’t save her, because she didn’t need saved. But he could fight for her. And fucking save himself.
He hurried across town to her house, though he didn’t exactly know why. He’d waited thirty years for this; what was a few more minutes?
But when you’d waited thirty years, a few minutes was everything.
Life and death, as it turned out.
He folded out of his cruiser, not quickly, but not casual either. His gait was purposeful, bordering on impatient. He knew then that it would likely be one of the last times he climbed out of that cruiser.
His only regret was that he hadn’t done this sooner.
All thoughts of firsts and lasts went out the proverbial window when he was halfway up Rosie’s path.
When a gunshot filled the air.
A muted gunshot.
Coming from inside Rosie’s house.
He didn’t think, didn’t hesitate, just reacted. His piece was off his hip in moments. He kicked Rosie’s door down, not thinking, not caring about the fact that he could get plugged with bullets crashing in.
He didn’t. Which meant it was coming from farther back in her house.
Her bedroom.
He hadn’t hesitated when he’d heard the shot, but he did freeze for a moment once he got into the doorway of Rosie’s bedroom.
When he glimpsed Rosie cuffed to the bed. Bruised. Battered. Almost naked.
Even his heart froze witnessing that.
Then it didn’t.
Then he found the justice that he’d been serving wrong his whole life.
He found justice in revenge. In murder.
It wasn’t as hard as he thought it’d be. It wasn’t hard at all. In fact, breathing was a trifle fucking harder as he stomped over the dead body to the bed.
The bed where a broken Rosie lay.
She blinked at him—one eye only, the other swollen shut.
It took everything Luke had not
to turn around and empty his clip into the half-headless body behind him. Rage, white hot, burned through his body, at a rate he had never before experienced.
“Luke?” a small voice croaked.
It was that small, quiet voice coming from the loudest and bravest women he knew that had him check that fury running through his veins.
It had him mask his flinch at seeing her ripped panties halfway down her thighs.
He tasted ash.
“Shhh, baby, you’re safe now,” he murmured, putting everything he had into gentling his voice.
In an action that was the hardest thing to do in his whole fucking life, he gently pulled up Rosie’s ripped panties, his body vibrating as he did so. He didn’t let himself think of that right now. He had more important things to worry about.
The most important thing.
Rosie.
First he shrugged off his jacket and covered her, cataloguing every inch of her bruises, feeling the blows in his own body.
Then he used his universal key to unlock her.
He caught her arms as they collapsed, rubbing her red and raw wrists as if he were rubbing the wings of a dove.
“He’s dead,” Rosie said, her voice disembodied. Empty.
Luke broke at that point, pulling Rosie into his arms, gathering her up.
“He’s dead,” he whispered.
And then she clutched his shirt and sobbed.
And Luke vowed to make sure for the rest of his life that she would never have a reason to sob like that again. That nothing would break her again. That he’d shield her from everything and anything.
Rosie
Luke got rid of the body.
Cleaned up the blood.
Cleaned up my mess.
Cleaned me up.
That was after he lost the battle taking me to a hospital.
But he won another one.
A big one.
The fight that my broken and Fucked-Up soul tried to wage in the wake of the shooting. After he’d killed for me, came to my bedside, demanded I be taken to a hospital.
After that, he’d sighed, glared, swore, but respected my wishes.
He stroked my hair, so soft and tender that it somehow hurt more than any of the hate-filled blows.
“I’ll fix you up,” he lied, like such a thing was possible. “Your first aid kit in the bathroom?”