“I missed you so much,” Grainger grates out through gritted teeth as I dig my fingers into his rust-red hair and yank on one of his lip rings with my teeth. “I hate you so much.”
Something clicks in my head then, another memory of that night, a moment where he said such a similar thing and yet meant the exact opposite. Because that’s us, right? Opposing things. Antitheses. Dichotomies. “I’ve always hated you, Gidge.”
“I hate you, too,” I breathe back as he fucks me hard and makes me come, my body wrapping his and squeezing like she never wants to let go. The exquisite silken flutter of my muscles milks Grainger into coming, too, spilling his hot seed inside of me as we clutch at each other like drowning people searching for a life raft.
With our pelvises still pressed together, sweating all over each other, we look at one another.
His face … it’s impossible to read.
After a moment, I relax my thighs and Grainger pulls out of me, helping me yank my dress back down and then taking my hand. Not my wrist, not my arm. My hand.
He curls his fingers through mine and pulls me down the hallway, making a right then a left like he knows exactly where he’s going. To be fair, for the club to plan an assault like this, he must. They must’ve canvassed this place for weeks. No, no … for months. They’ve been planning this rescue since I went missing or else it wouldn’t be happening this way, this successfully.
Grainger adjusts his grip to my wrist just before kicking open a door at the end of a short hallway and leading me outside, into the gray glare of a coastal morning. If I take a deep breath, I can smell a hint of salt and sea behind the harsher smells of leather and blood.
Cat is waiting.
Gaz at his side, the club’s treasurer René just behind him. As I watch, another door opens and Crown, Beast, and Sin appear, all of them dressed in blood and frowns.
“We don’t have a lot of time,” Crown tells Cat as Grainger pulls me across the grass toward my father.
I have never—never—been so scared in all of my life.
This is it.
One last goodbye fuck with Grainger and then … will Cat torture me? Will he give me to his men to use? My stomach twists as nausea overtakes me and I wobble slightly on my feet. It’s so damn cold out here. Freezing. Glacial.
“There’s my girl,” Cat breathes, stepping forward and cupping my face in his sun-weathered hand. It’s a somewhat affectionate gesture, oddly reminiscent of the way the Don touched me just a half hour earlier.
I am so confused right now. I look up and into his rust-red eyes, his wrinkled face, his grizzled beard. Who the hell is this man and what has he done with my father?
I’m not stupid enough to question him right then. Instead, I do my best to focus past the burn of Grainger’s fingers pressing into my wrist, my mind spinning, the world tilting around me.
“Shoulda known if anyone could survive this shit, it’d be you.” Cat looks me over from head to toe, studying the bloodied wedding dress with interest. “They force you into a marriage with some old bastard?”
What the actual fuck is going on right now?
I blink a few times to clear my head as Grainger finally—unfortunately—releases me. My eyes slide to his and our gazes meet. I can’t tell what his motives are, what Cat’s motives are. This is all just … it’s a lot, especially after three months of living in this viper’s den.
“No, the boy …” I start as Sin approaches me, his blue faux hawk spattered with blood, a set of keys in his hand. I’m reminded as I look at him that I fucked him to get access to his keys once before, that just minutes before I took off with Grey, he was inside of me, pressing my bare cheeks to the exterior walls of the cabin.
“They were marrying you off to the boy?” Cat says, throwing a glance in Crown’s direction. “The hell they playin’ at?” It’s a rhetorical question, not meant to be answered in the here and now. “Well, shit, guess we better load up before they bring in the big guns.”
“Should I take her in the Escalade?” Sin queries, flicking his silver eyes my direction. They slide from my face down to my chest, and then he frowns, his semi-crooked mouth reminding me why I always thought he was so damn cute.
I follow his gaze and glance down at my chest, at the hole in the lacey neckline and the nearly black blood leaking out of it. With a frown of my own, I hook a finger under the edge of the torn lace and pull it back, noticing for the first time that …
“Oh, I was shot,” I say, and then the dizziness and the swirling scenery, the confusion and the blistering cold, it all makes so much more sense.
“Fuck,” Sin murmurs, and then he manages to catch me as I fall forward.
That’s the last thing I remember for days.
It’s a monumental task to get my tired lids to part, to take in the blurred scenery and try to make sense of it. Am I back in that bedroom again? I wonder, reaching out a hand and finding a warm male body sitting on the edge of the bed. I must be. And this is Grey.
The man squeezes my hand, and a hot thrill shoots through me, like a shock of adrenaline to the heart. I snap to, sitting up suddenly as the man withdraws his hand. It takes me several more blinks to bring the room into focus and realize that I’m in my grandmother’s old bedroom, the one that still smells like her perfume.
Though … this house hasn’t really been a home in a long, long time.
Instead, this is where the club buries the bodies they don’t want found. It may as well be a graveyard, a cursed place full of death and pain and misery. Underneath this house, there’s a sea of skeletons tumbled together in a mass grave.
I shiver and rub at my face with both hands. The motion makes the bandage on my shoulder pull, and I wince against the pain.
“Easy,” the man breathes as I drop my hands to my lap, realizing as I do that it isn’t Grey sitting there: it’s Crown. Crown. Fucking Crown. Born Calder Reid, ex-cop, Boy Scout among thieves, six foot five with auburn-highlighted brown hair that curls in such a sweet, endearing way that it almost tricks me. Almost.
“No lectures?” I manage to choke out, but then the coughing starts, and Crown is offering me a glass of water. I push it away, and he growls at me.
“When someone’s trying to help you, don’t fight it.”
He scoots closer to me, wraps a strong arm around my waist, and forces the water to my lips. He tilts the glass in just such a way that I’m forced to either drink it or let it spill all down my front. I choose the latter and Crown curses at me. My eyes are narrowed as I stare at him, and he finally pulls the glass away.
He looks at it then back at me before taking a huge drink and then offering it up again.
“It’s not poisoned; don’t be a stubborn little brat for once in your life.”
The way he’s staring at me, the way he’s talking to me, it isn’t how I’d expect him to treat a traitor of the club. He’s angry, that’s for damn sure, but why wouldn’t he be?
I Tased him. I stole his bike. I freed a hostage—a hostage who just so happens to be the prince of the mafia that the club’s been locked in war with for decades.
Rightfully, my head should be on a pike. Instead, I’ve been tended and washed, dressed in clean panties and a tank top, my shoulder cared for. My hair is even brushed and tangle-free. Reluctantly, I accept the glass and swig the remainder of its contents, swiping my arm across my lips as Crown and I examine one another like we both suspect the other of something nefarious.
It’s weird to be back here, like waking up in another world. Have three months really passed?
“Gidge,” Crown starts, sweeping hair back from my face. The gesture seems to annoy him as he withdraws his hand, staring down at it like it’s the traitor—rather than me. He opens his mouth to talk and then pauses, eyes flicking toward the bedroom door.
Somebody’s coming. I can hear the cacophony of boots as they make their way up the stairs.
“Listen to me,” Crown continues, turning all the way to face me a
nd taking my head in two, big, tattooed hands. Our eyes meet, and I almost want to cry. I want to throw myself into his arms and let him hold me. And like, since when has that ever been a thing? We have never had that kind of relationship. It’s like the devil begging to be pulled into God’s embrace. Except … I know that Crown is anything but godly. Tears will not help me now—even if I were to realize that crying doesn’t necessarily make one weak. Maybe it’s that I’m just not strong enough to let my true feelings show? “After Grainger brought you to the compound, you bummed a smoke from Sin, and that’s the last thing I can recall. Only the five of us know you traded us for that boy.”
He keeps our gazes locked, squeezing me just a bit tighter than he should.
Wait.
Wait, wait, wait.
What?
“Who are you and what have you done with Crown?” I whisper, but he leans in even closer to me, putting our foreheads together. His voice is low and urgent and as close to desperate as I’ve ever heard it.
“Gidge, that’s all that I remember.” He pulls away from me just in time for the bedroom door to open. Cat walks in first, followed by René, Gaz, Sin, Grainger, Beast, and a handful of higher-ups and favorites of his. Then there’s little ol’ me, wearing nothing but a tank, panties, and a heart that’s close to bursting.
In club culture, the club comes first. Always. Forever. No matter what. It comes before wives and daughters, sons and cousins and grandparents and best friends. The club is life. The men are each other’s brothers in a way that marks the rest of the world secondary. Loyalty comes first and is prized above all else. Disloyalty is punished by death.
When I say blood in, blood out, I do not mean it euphemistically.
Then there’s Crown.
Mr. Black and White, choose a side and follow the rules, Boy Scout motherfucker.
For him to lie for me … for him to keep lying for me. No greater declaration need ever be said. The world’s greatest romantic gesture, and I don’t even know what to do with it.
Only the five of us know you traded us for that boy.
It doesn’t take a genius to parcel out who those five are. Me. Crown. Sin, Beast, Grainger.
I swallow hard and let out a long, slow exhale.
I’ll deal with the anger inherent in that statement later. Traded us. Ouch.
He thinks I chose Grey over him, over all of them. In a way, I suppose, I did. In my defense, I wasn’t aware that any one of them was a real option.
“Morning Gidge,” Cat says, pulling a chair close so he can sit in front of the bed.
“It’s Gidget,” I correct automatically, but the familiar quip seems strange, almost foreign. When I took Grey and ran, I was giving up this life forever. No, no, not just giving it up, as if it were some passive thing. I was throwing it as far and as hard as I could. I was making a guarantee and a promise that I would never come back. Yet, here I am.
Cat snorts and reaches out to ruffle my hair with his big hand. I stiffen up because, you know, the last time we were in a position similar to this, he put a gun to my forehead, pulled the trigger, and then dumped my bloody dog in my lap. Excuse the fuck out of me for not trusting the guy.
My brother glares daggers at me, his distrust apparent but unvoiced.
My eyes travel across the other faces in the room. Even though Sin tries to keep a straight face, he can’t. He cracks and gives me a small, crooked smile, the scar on the edge of his lip pulling his mouth up in such a way that he looks like a wolf. A pack predator. Just remember, Gidge, you are still a bear. You are still solo, even if it looks like you have allies.
Grainger and I lock eyes, and even though he scowls and looks away from me, we both know what happened in the chapel. He told me he missed me. That he hated me when he meant what was likely the exact opposite.
To his credit, Beast gives me nothing. But I can feel him. All of that power, all of that violence. The loyalty in his leash was moved long ago, and I just didn’t realize it, not until the day he beat up Gaz and ignored my father’s order. Only my voice could stop him. Only my voice could keep the monster at bay.
I look back at Cat.
“Girl, I won’t presume to know the things you been through,” he says, but with a grudging admiration and respect in his voice that I’ve never heard directed at me before. A rush of heady pleasure spirals through me, making my skin flush, and my lips part. It’s addictive, finally getting that approval from Cat that I’ve always craved, whether I knew it or not—even if I hate myself for it at the same time.
It’s so intense, so overwhelming, that it almost makes me understand why Gaz is such a suck-up, why he licks Cat’s boots and kisses his lily-white ass. Almost.
“There are unique tortures that a woman …” Cat stops, and I realize he’s giving me a moment to tell him if I’ve been raped. How many times, and by whom.
“They gave me to their son,” I say, weighing each word carefully, knowing that my entire life depends on the things I say in this room. Shit, my father’s officers’ lives depend on what I say now. If I slip up at all, we might as well dig a mass grave together and curl up inside. Five peas in a pod. “To Grey Wolfe.”
My father sniffles and leans back, running his hand over the lower half of his face. His rust-red eyes, the exact match to my own, watch me carefully.
“The hostage,” Cat clarifies, and I nod. He leans forward again, resting his elbows on his knees. He lowers his voice in just such a way that it’s meant to be read as a warning. “Tell me what happened that day, baby girl.”
I look my father dead in the face, and I lie with every ounce of conviction I have inside of me. This is life or death. Honesty is a privilege that I’m not afforded.
“You mean how did I get from your compound into the hands of the Grey Wolfe Mafia?” I spit back, putting emphasis on the compound and its apparent lack of security. It works, and I see several of the men behind my father shift uncomfortably. I make certain not to look at any of his officers, any of the four men that I shared my body with, that I’d gladly take to bed again and again and again, even against my better judgement. “Good question. I thought you’d be the one telling me that.” I exhale and push my hair back, wrapping my arms around my blanket-covered knees. “I remember Grainger taking me from the house to the compound.” I pause again and rub at the side of my head. If I give the story too easily or too quickly, then it’ll be obvious that I’m lying. It’s been three months since that day, and I’ve been through a lot. Although I remember each moment, each second that transpired, I probably wouldn’t under normal circumstances.
“Hurry it up,” Gaz snaps, and surprisingly, it’s freaking Grainger that reaches out and snatches my brother’s arm. He is, after all, the sergeant-at-arms which means it’s his job to keep the club members in line. He’s like a sheriff for the club while Crown is the VP, Sin is the travel agent, and Beast is the … executioner.
“Shut your fucking mouth and let her talk,” Cade hisses, his umber eyes darkening with a rage that I think I’m finally starting to understand. He releases my brother, but Gaz sneers at him in a way that tells me he won’t forget this moment if an opportunity arises later.
“I got bored, so I wandered up the hill and bummed a smoke from Sin …” I trail off again, like I’m thinking. “Pretty sure he told me to fuck off, and I told him to eat shit. Then I went into the woods and carved I Hate Cat into a tree.” My father snorts, but he isn’t displeased. There’s a certain level of defiance from me that he finds amusing. Maybe because it reminds him so much of himself—the person that he loves most in all the world. “Some guy came out of the trees and asked me my name. I just assumed he was a prospect or something, so I flipped him off. After that …” I swallow hard and throw the blankets back, revealing my ruined legs. “Pain.” My voice cracks, but I don’t have to fake it. The pain of that accident haunts me at night. More than once Grey had to wake me from a nightmare where I was bleeding to death on the pavement.
My
father leans back in his chair again, crossing his arms over his chest as I touch my legs with shaky fingers, hating the shiny pink scars and the craggy skin. Crown very gently takes the blanket and puts it back over me.
“Fuck,” Cat murmurs as the other men wait patiently behind him. He rubs at his jaw for a moment. I don’t think for a split-second that he believes me so easily because he’s taking my word for it. He believes me because … my gaze shifts over to Crown’s.
He’s watching me oh so carefully, like a porcelain doll that might tumble off the shelf and break. It annoys the crap out of me, that expression. I’m not some fragile thing in need of rescue; I survived a lot. I was about to become the queen of the Grey Wolfe Mafia for fuck’s sake.
“What next?” Cat asks, which isn’t unexpected.
I recall those first few days, where I was bleeding and broken and barely conscious.
“I remember being tied to a chair. I remember … I had no skin on my legs.” I close my eyes. “My right shoulder was dislocated; I couldn’t feel my fingers.”
“Don’t look like you missed a meal to me,” Gaz murmurs, and I flick my eyes open just in time to see Grainge cuff him in the back of the head.
“You spoiled rotten brat,” he snarls, taking my brother by the nape. “Get out and take a walk, calm yourself down. How dare you let sibling rivalry get in the way of club business. You should be ashamed of yourself.” Grainger shoves my brother toward the door, and nobody stops him. Cat doesn’t even glance back. To be fair, even by club standards my brother was out of line.
But that’s not why Cade Grainger is punishing him.
A strange, effervescent sort of feeling takes over me then. It’s tempered, of course, by the reality of my situation, but I’d be lying if I said I got no thrill in thinking that these four men, these four monsters … might actually care about me.
Might.
It’s possible that they have different motives in mind. No, not just possible, but likely.
I Am Dressed in Sin: A Reverse Harem Age Gap Romance (Death By Daybreak Motorcycle Club Book 2) Page 7