Handy when the same gang that raped, tortured, and murdered my best friend then kidnapped, beat and almost killed my brother’s girlfriend. The woman I was certain would become my sister and the mother of my nieces and nephew.
When she was taken, the club lapsed back into that dark and colorless version of hell that haunted us. The one we thought we’d left behind in the past but the one that had been waiting, biding its time to strike again, when we didn’t expect it. And we didn’t. Cade didn’t.
I didn’t recognize my brother in the hours that Gwen was missing. He wasn’t the man who’d taught me how to ride two different kinds of bikes, who let me crawl into his bed for two months after we lost our father. Who screamed at my mother when she came back into our life after that loss, telling me my father had failed making me into a ‘woman.’
He wasn’t that unseen kind, caring, and selfless version of my brother.
Nor was he the man who’d crushed a man’s jaw when he’d heard him talking shit about me at a club party. Or the man who’d ordered a hit on the guy who took my virginity. Or even the man who had told me my death, or at the very least my exile, would come from a romance with the enemy,
He wasn’t that cold, calculating murderer who the outlaw and inlaw world feared and respected.
He was something different entirely.
Something that scared me almost as much as what was happening to Gwen in those hours that he was like that.
It terrified me, the thought that he might permanently be like that if we didn’t find Gwen in the way she’d been hours before: laughing, beautiful, happy. He’d be Bull. And that man’s loss was felt in all of our souls. I didn’t know how the club would survive something like that again. It would crush them.
So when we found her, badly beaten but still herself, we dodged a bullet. A big fucking one.
Cade had called Luke in the second she was missing.
That meant a lot of things for me. A lot of things I couldn’t focus on. I focused on what it meant for the club. It meant that any retaliation couldn’t come from them.
The law would be watching them closely. The law, on the other hand, would not be watching me at all. And it hurt for other reasons, but it was great for my current ones.
I sat and watched the last of the bikes pull into the Spiders’ clubhouse. The one I’d snuck into earlier and planted my homemade bomb in. I’d shooed out some women, most of whom were beaten, and all of whom were defeated. I promised them that I’d take care of them, get them away from this life for the price of their silence.
They all agreed.
It was only the guilty who were in there when my bomb exploded, killing each and every one of them.
I drove back to the club numbly, without any particular emotional response to being responsible for mass murder. Did it still count as murder when the men were scum?
I guessed it did.
Still, my conscience was clear.
My first destination when I pulled in was the bar. I didn’t really feel like I needed to escape my decision, but Jose Cuervo was as good of company as any.
“Proud of you.”
I glanced up at the gravelly voice, its owner the man who was the closest thing to a father I had left.
I poured him a glass. “What? For drinking this straight instead of swirling it in ‘liquid sugar and bullshit’?”
He laughed. “Well, that too.” He drained his glass and poured himself another. “The explosion at the Spiders’ compound. No survivors.”
I drained my own drink. “Well, looks like Lucifer’s gonna have himself some houseguests,” I muttered.
“Wasn’t any of my boys,” Steg continued.
“I think not, with the police watching you like hawks,” I said, feigning disinterest.
Steg’s wrinkled and tattooed hand closed over mine. “Was my girl.” His other hand went to my chin, moving my gaze from the chipped wood of the bar to his steely gaze. “You don’t wear a patch, babe. Even if you did, as president, I’d have a shit show tryin’ to control you.”
I grinned. “Of course.”
“But today you were more of a Son than anyone wearing a patch. Know no one’s gonna know. No one can know. Place we need you is right here, keeping our family together, not behind bars. So no one will know what you put on your soul tonight, what you did for us. I will. And your daddy will too. He’ll be proud, baby. Prouder than me, and that’s a tough fuckin’ feat.” He paused, and I took that moment to inwardly smile at my adopted father telling me my dead father was looking down—or up, depending on your view—at me, proud of mass murder.
And Steg wasn’t wrong.
“Takin’ lives, it’s a funny thing. At the time, when the blood is hot and the temper is hotter, it don’t seem like much. Fuck, it don’t seem like enough. But we cool down. We’re not meant to run that hot. It’s when we cool down that it gets to us. Even if we were doing the right thing.” He paused again. “Our version of the right, at least. Even the worst of souls answers to themselves for taking another. And you, my girl, are not even close to being the worst. Better than most. As better as I think one can get. So you don’t think it’ll get to you, but it will. I’m here when it does. For now, let’s get fucked up.”
I smiled shakily. “Best offer I’ve had all night.”
I opened the door and debated closing it again for two reasons. One, the sunlight was extremely offensive to my soul and my pounding head. Two, Luke was standing at my door.
In uniform.
Looking too fucking hot for his own good.
And mine.
Because I reasoned that I looked like one of those witches who ate people’s hearts in order to preserve my youth. And I hadn’t had my protein in a while.
I didn’t close the door. Because I was a masochist like that.
“Do you take to knocking on doors at dawn for fun, or has there been some sort of zombie incident you’re telling everyone about?” I groaned, blocking the sun with the back of my hand.
“It’s noon,” Luke said.
“Like I said, dawn,” I countered.
Luke didn’t crack a smile. “Can I come in?”
I dropped my hand. Blinked.
Luke had never asked to come into my house. Come to think of it, I wasn’t even sure Luke had knocked on my door.
But there he was.
And a cop, in uniform, asking to come inside the house with a grim expression meant bad things. Especially if the cop was Luke.
“Oh my God, is someone… has someone… has there been an accident?” I spluttered, my heart thundering as much as my head.
Luke’s face changed, gentled some. “Shit, no, Rosie. Everyone is okay.”
I sagged. “Okay.”
I was so overcome with relief that I actually stepped aside and let him walk in, passing by so close I could smell his aftershave and feel the warmth of his body enrich the air.
I held my breath and closed the door behind him.
He was already sitting on my vintage sofa when I made it to the living room. I knew he wouldn’t exactly fit in my environment, but I didn’t think he’d stick out so much. Neatly pressed uniform, smoothed hair, clean-shaven. Fucking beautiful. Against my chaos.
If I ever needed a photo of just how ridiculous my feelings were, I just needed to remember this. I sat gingerly on the armchair across from him, expecting him to engage in some kind of small talk.
“Spiders’ compound blew up last night,” he said, without pleasantries.
I did my best not to let the lack of… anything in his voice get to me. Nor the sick feeling curling in my stomach about this being the topic of conversation and me being the fucking criminal, the murderer.
“I’d say I’m sorry, but I’m not,” I said. “They’ve deserved something along the lines of a fiery death since Laurie died.”
It hurt, every cell in my body, saying that out loud. It was a year ago but it felt like a minute. I tried not to remember the way Luke held me that ni
ght. The way he saved me. Because if I did, then it was all over.
Like it wasn’t already.
Luke didn’t betray anything, didn’t make me think that my words had any kind of effect. “Scene is pretty much burning bone and rubble,” he said, voice flat. “Not much evidence to be found.”
“Bummer for you, dude,” I snapped, trying to keep my voice casual and cold like his.
Luke didn’t react, didn’t even blink. “I said not much. Didn’t say none.”
His grim, detached face caught me then, chilling me when paired with those words. “Well, isn’t that great? You might just find justice for the rapists and murderers yet,” I said, sarcasm concealing the fear in my tone.
Luke didn’t reply, just reached into his pocket and dangled a piece of chain from his thumb and forefinger.
I stilled, and then, stupidly, my hands instinctively went to my bare neck.
The necklace, in sloping script, read Rosie.
I had literally left my motherfucking name at the crime scene.
The thought filled me with cold dread, the image of life in a cold and dank prison cell. A life trapped.
But then something else filled me.
Gloveless, Luke was presenting evidence. Evidence he’d not bagged and tagged, as was procedure. Evidence he’d pocketed. Luke had, quite literally, taken my motherfucking name from the crime scene.
A crime in itself.
A big fucking crime.
He was grim-faced and silent as he handed it to me. Woodenly, I took it.
I fingered the metal in my hands, cold and way too light for the weight it represented. The silence lasted long. Too long. Uncomfortable, the still air grated against my skin, drilling into my bone with the truth of not what I’d done, but of what Luke had done for me.
“Luke,” I managed to choke out, not sure what I was going to say afterward.
He held up his hand, face still blank, empty. “Don’t say anything, Rosie.” He stood. I immediately stood as well. He ran his hand through his hair. “Just don’t fucking say anything, Rosie.”
Then he turned and went to leave.
I watched his back.
“I had to,” I whispered, my voice barely audible.
But he heard me, because he stopped. “I know,” he replied, voice soft. “And that’s the fucking tragedy of it all.”
And then he was gone.
Present Day
“You cut your hair,” Cade observed.
I flinched at the noise. I’d been staring out the window at the streets whizzing past, my mind, for once, empty.
“Yeah,” I said.
Cade had taken me back to a hotel and let me shower. He even had clothes for me. Well, the me he’d known before.
He didn’t say anything as I gave him a nod of thanks before retreating into the bathroom to slip back into the persona I’d left behind.
Someone, most likely Gwen, had packed a bag of cosmetics —I didn’t think Cade would have the forethought or knowledge to pack primer, concealer, and bronzer, let alone my entire makeup collection. I presumed she put together the outfit too.
The tee was meant to be a shirt, and she’d packed leather shorts to go with it, but it tumbled down my thighs, long enough to be a dress. I went with it. I’d changed. I couldn’t slip back into my old skin like nothing happened. I had to somehow repurpose it. Work with it. Starting with the dress was easy; it was the other stuff that wasn’t.
I slathered on makeup to hide my lack of sleep, the sallowness to my skin. But makeup could only do so much. Plus, I didn’t give a shit about it all.
My girl was in the hospital. Unconscious or not, she needed me there.
Cade hadn’t said a thing when I emerged, just directed me out the door and back into the truck. The hair comment was the first thing he said. Which was surprising, since I thought I would’ve been met with demands of where I’d been and a lot of yelling.
His stare was physical, even though I kept looking out the window.
“Your hair isn’t the only thing you’ve changed,” he murmured, a lot more beneath the words.
“No,” I agreed again.
I waited for it. The wave of anger that Cade was so well-known for. That the wayward and unpredictable Rosie was so well-known to be receiving of.
Nothing came.
There was pressure at my hand. I looked down at the sloping script ‘Isabella’ at the top of my brother’s large hand, jumping out from all the other ink there. He gave me a firm squeeze, silent support, silent acknowledgment of the fact that I wouldn’t talk right then.
I couldn’t.
I squeezed back.
“Whatever version of you you’ve become, I’m just happy to have my sister back,” he said quietly, once his hand left mine.
I didn’t reply.
Did he really have his sister back?
The room smelled of death. They’d tried to cover it up with all sorts of cleaning products, so strong it stung my nostrils, but you couldn’t cover up death. Not to the people who were used to the fragrance.
It froze me. Right in the doorway.
I never froze. Not in the face of gunshots, blood or violence. Or even death. All of that was the backdrop of our childhood.
Well, not never. Even never had its exceptions.
Once, I had.
Frozen completely and utterly. In a moment not unlike this, me, standing in a hospital room, watching a desperate man bend over a small, prone form in a hospital bed. The air stale and rancid with despair.
Death wrapped around me like a coat. Too hot, uncomfortable and scratching every inch of my skin.
It wasn’t my death.
It wasn’t even Lucy’s.
It was Laurie’s.
Six Years Earlier
I watched the grim reaper twitch, moving rapidly up and down. It would have been comical really. But standing here in this doorway, watching that grim reaper on Bull’s cut move with the force of his sobs, I didn’t think anything would be funny again.
Every part of me was glued to the door, unable to move into the room, unable to run out. I knew if I walked in there, I’d have to face it. The loss. The grief. The wretched and ugly reality lying in that bed, the remains of my beautiful and remarkable friend.
If I went back into the crowded and somber waiting room, maybe I could trick myself for a little longer. Convince myself that this was all some sick dream, and I’d wake up hungover on the sofa at the clubhouse to see Laurie and Bull walk in, hand in hand, smiling, the soft glow of true love enveloping them. I’d watch them, certain that something so pure, so perfect, was bulletproof.
That fantasy was ripped away from me with brutal quickness as the room and the death inside it beckoned me.
Something that pure, that beautiful, it was the opposite of bulletproof. Like a flower growing out of a crack in the sidewalk, it was beautiful, remarkable even. But it wasn’t supposed to be there, and eventually someone stepped on it.
Crushed it.
I continued to watch the grim reaper’s journey.
Bull’s mammoth form hid most of her. Laurie. It always had. He was like a massive jigsaw piece, and she was the tiny one that slotted in just so.
The only one who would.
And now she didn’t fit.
Because she wasn’t there.
Her body was. Broken and battered and ruined.
But her beautiful spirit was nowhere to be found. I would know. A room wouldn’t feel this horrible and cold if Laurie’s light was still there. The only sound, beyond the deafening roar of death and the silent scream of Bull’s sorrow, was a mechanical beeping informing the room that Laurie’s heart was still beating.
Just because a heart was beating didn’t mean someone was still alive.
They’d had her for twenty-four hours.
I tasted bile.
Laurie—the real Laurie, not what was being measured by that machine—died twenty-three hours and fifty-nine minutes before.
She was never coming back.
Agony ripped through my body as the thought took root in my broken heart. I was only standing underneath the weight of the pain because I didn’t move. I was perfectly poised between life and death. In my spot, Laurie wasn’t quite alive, but she wasn’t quite gone either.
Gentle hands at my waist shocked me from my silent suffering. My eyes met the gray gaze of my brother.
I flinched when I looked into those eyes and saw nothing. Every inch of Cade was stone, like a walking robot. Despite what people might think, there was never a time when Cade was emotionless. He had made an art of making it look that way, but I’d known him my whole life and knew better.
There was always something working. And he was as kind as he was tough. That kindness shone through only on rare occasions with people he adored.
Me, for example.
Laurie, for another.
Cade, like everyone else in the club, treated her differently than even me. She was like a sheep that had wandered into the lion’s den. Instead of harming her, those lions made it their mission not just to protect her, but to ensure the sheep never knew the brutality of the jungle.
Cade had been different with her. Had a connection. He’d loved her like the softer, more innocent sister he never had.
And he’d lost her.
I glanced to the moving reaper.
Cade was losing his brother too.
“Rosie, you shouldn’t be in here,” he said flatly.
I sucked in a ragged breath. “Where else should I be?” I whispered.
I didn’t know why I whispered; neither of the other two people in the room could hear us, both of them gone in different ways.
The girl formally known as my best friend had to be in the place reserved for all the best souls. The man sitting beside her broken body had forfeited his soul to the worst of all places.
Cade merely looked at me, that same empty expression hollowing out his features. “I don’t know, kid,” he whispered back. “I don’t know.”
He just stood there, unable to offer me the support he’d given me over the entirety of my life, unable to protect me.
He couldn’t protect me from the death in this room any more than he could protect me from the smoke from a fire.