by Joanna Wylde
Double fuck. Something was really wrong. Her voice all but screamed it.
“Yeah, I’m good to drive,” he said, and thankfully he was. Hadn’t been in the mood to drink—too many thoughts running through his head. He heard her breath catch. “Should I bring anyone with me?”
“Um, we should probably be discreet,” she said slowly. “I’m in some trouble here, Ruger. I don’t know what to do.”
“Are you hurt?” he asked quickly.
“I don’t think so,” she replied. “That’s not really the worst of it … Ruger, I’ve done something bad. I think you should come over right now. I need you to tell me what to do. I know I keep asking you to stay out of my life, but I was wrong about that. I can’t do this on my own.”
“Okay, babe. I’ll be right there.”
He pulled up to her place twenty minutes later. She sat outside on the little stoop, arms wrapped tight around her knees. She looked impossibly brittle, like she’d explode into a thousand pieces if he touched her. Little red dots spotted her face.
Blood spatter. Fuck.
“What’s up, Soph?” Ruger asked, crouching down. She looked at him with blank eyes. “Did you fall down or something?”
“No,” she said quietly. “Zach punched my stomach and threatened to kill Noah, so I killed him instead.”
Ruger froze.
“Excuse me?” he asked carefully, wondering if he’d hallucinated what she’d just said.
“Zach punched my stomach and threatened to kill Noah, so I killed him,” she repeated, meeting his gaze. “He was mad at me because he’d heard I was sleeping with you. He’s always been crazy jealous, you know that. I don’t know what set him off, but he must’ve been spying on me somehow, because he knew exactly how to find me. He was inside the apartment, waiting, when I got home from the karaoke bar. He kissed me, and then he started asking questions and punched me. He said he was going to kill Noah and I knew he meant it, so I hit him over the head with a cast-iron skillet until he died.”
Ruger swallowed. He didn’t feel sorry for Zach, but this was one hell of a clusterfuck.
“Are you sure he’s dead?”
She nodded slowly.
“I kept hitting him, just to make sure,” she replied, far too calmly. “I checked his pulse. He’s definitely dead. I’m hoping you’ll tell me what to do next. I finally did my own dirty work, Ruger, but I don’t know how to finish it.”
Damn it. He shouldn’t have left her alone. Should’ve come to check on her when she didn’t show up with the rest of the girls … Fuck giving her space.
“Okay,” he said. “Where’s Noah?”
“Spending the night with Elle,” Sophie said. “She’ll get him ready for school in the morning. I’ll pick him up and take him on the way to work.”
Well, that was something.
“I’m going to go inside, check things out,” he said. “That okay with you?”
“Sure,” she murmured. “No problem. I’ll just stay out here, I think?”
“That sounds good,” he told her, reaching out and cupping her cheek. She leaned her head into his touch, eyes starting to water. Then he stood up and stepped past her, opening the door.
Fuck. Double fuck …
Zach was on the floor, his hair matted with blood. A pool of it surrounded him. A horrible stench filled the air, a mixture of burned meat and scorched hair.
The pan lay next to Zach’s corpse, more blood crusting the sides. It’d splattered behind him, too. That would take some serious cleaning. New linoleum for sure, and they might even need to replace the floorboards underneath, he mused.
Ruger checked Zach’s pulse just to be sure, but Sophie was right. His stepbrother was definitely dead. This was a mess, a big mess, and cleaning it up wouldn’t be pretty.
He was proud of her, though.
She’d defended herself when it counted, and ultimately this was Ruger’s fault. He should’ve killed Zach four years ago. Then he should have killed him when he’d collected the child support. Fucking weak of him.
He’d held off because of Noah.
Didn’t want to kill the boy’s father. Didn’t want to do that to his own mother, either. She’d loved Zach, for reasons Ruger had never understood. So he’d given Zach another pass, leaving his woman to finish the job.
Fucking idiot.
Ruger pulled out his phone and dialed Pic.
“It’s Ruger,” he said. “I’m out at Soph’s place. Could use some help here, it’s delicate. Anyone up for it? Probably gonna need a van …”
“How delicate?” Picnic asked. He hadn’t been drinking much, either, thank fuck. Neither of them had quite relaxed since the kidnapping, and that vigilance might save Sophie’s ass now.
“About as delicate as it gets,” Ruger said slowly. “We should talk in person.”
“Gotcha,” Pic replied, hanging up. Ruger went back outside and found Sophie still sitting on the porch. He sat down behind her, wrapping his arms around her body, legs surrounding hers as he pulled her close. She shivered.
“Hey, Soph,” he whispered, nuzzling her neck. She leaned back into him and he realized she was crying softly, tears rolling down her face.
Good. Crying was better than that creepy calm she’d had earlier.
“I’m really sorry, Ruger,” she told him. “I keep calling you in to fix things, always making you do the hard stuff. First Miranda, now this. I should’ve called the cops …”
“No fucking way,” he said. “That’s a mess we don’t need. You might get off on self-defense, you might not. Not after you kept hitting him. He was just sitting when you attacked, right? He wasn’t about to hit you or something?”
“Not really,” Sophie replied. “He was looking at his hands and I was supposed to be cooking eggs.”
“You did what you had to do,” Ruger said, hoping she believed him. “He chose this—he threatened your son, Soph. You had to protect him. That’s what mothers do.”
She nodded her head.
“I know,” she replied. “He said he’d kill all of us and I knew he meant it. The restraining order didn’t do shit. Going to jail only stopped him for a while … What if he hurt Noah next time? I wasn’t willing to take that chance.”
“We’ll clean this up for you,” he replied, resting his cheek on her head. God, he loved how she smelled, although for once his dick had the grace to stay down. “Hopefully nobody knew he was coming here. He’ll just disappear. If the cops ever come looking, we’ll say I did it, okay?”
“You can’t—” she tried to protest, but he cut her off.
“I’m not planning on it,” Ruger said. “Trust me, prison isn’t on my bucket list. We play things right, it won’t be an issue. He wasn’t here, it never happened. But if the shit hits the fan, you’ll do what I tell you, what the club lawyer tells you. Got me?”
“I just feel so bad dragging you into it.”
“We’re a family,” he whispered. “We take care of each other. That’s the way it works, babe. You protected yourself and Noah, now I’ll protect you. My brothers’ll cover my ass, and we’ll all make it through just fine.”
“We are a family, aren’t we?” she whispered.
“Always.”
She nodded her head slowly, and he squeezed her tight. They sat together quietly, waiting for Picnic, listening to the frogs and crickets singing in the background.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
SOPHIE
Ruger, Picnic, and Painter took care of Zach.
They made him disappear, along with the frying pan, my clothes, and every other piece of evidence in the house.
Erasing a human life shouldn’t be so easy.
Ruger had me take a shower, then I crawled into Noah’s bed and tried to sleep. Even if my mind hadn’t been racing, I hurt too bad to get any rest. I’d have a hell of a bruise. At least it wouldn’t show anywhere. The sun was already rising when I heard him come back and turn on the shower. Twenty minutes later he padded into
the bedroom and lay down next to me, pulling me into his arms.
I turned and burrowed into him, holding him tight.
“Thank you,” I whispered fiercely, and I meant it. Not just for tonight, but for everything. “Thank you for always being here for me.”
“It’s what I do,” he whispered back. His hand came up and ran through my hair softly, soothing me.
“I was wrong,” I said.
“Hmmm?”
“I was wrong about you,” I continued. “I kept saying I didn’t want anything to do with you, that the club does horrible things. But I’m the one doing horrible things.”
“You survived,” he replied, and his voice didn’t waver. “You protected your son. That’s not horrible.”
“When I called you, you could’ve told me to fuck off,” I replied. “I had no right to drag you into this. Now you’re an accomplice.”
“Babe, it’s over,” he said. “Let it be over. I’ll come by in a couple of days, put some new flooring in the kitchen, throw on some paint. Then it’s done. We don’t need to talk about it, okay? In fact, we shouldn’t talk about it.”
“Okay,” I whispered. “What about us? I feel like this changes things.”
“We don’t need to figure it out right now, Soph,” he said. “Try to sleep. You’ve got to be up in an hour for work. It’s going to be a long, tiring day, and you’ve got to get through it. On the bright side, if anyone asks why you look like shit, you can say you’re hungover. Plenty of witnesses to that, thank fuck.”
“Wish I could call in sick,” I said. “I suppose calling in with a hangover this early into the job isn’t such a good idea, hmm?”
“Probably not,” he said. He kissed the top of my head. “Like I said, we don’t have to figure things out right now, but I’m going to stay with you for a while. I don’t want you alone.”
It didn’t occur to me to argue. I really, really didn’t want to be alone. I’d never believed in ghosts, but I was pretty sure Zach planned to haunt me.
Probably for the rest of my life.
A week later we still hadn’t talked things through.
Ruger moved us back to his house the Saturday after I killed Zach, and this time I didn’t argue with him. He put me back in my old room, and while we spent almost every evening together, he never did more than give me a quick kiss good night.
I appreciated that more than I knew how to say.
Things had changed between us in a profound way, something I think we both knew. All our fighting and nitpicking seemed so silly now. So did my endless agonizing about whether or not I should be with him. Once a man disposes of a body for you, the moral high ground has been lost.
Nothing says “commitment” like accessory to murder.
Sooner or later we’d be together. I just wasn’t ready yet, and surprisingly, Ruger was patient. We both worried that yet another move would upset Noah, but he took it in stride—apparently he’d never considered Elle’s place as anything more than an extended sleepover anyway.
Elle just gave a Cheshire cat smile when I told her we’d be moving.
Apparently life goes on, even after you kill someone.
Marie and Horse had their rehearsal dinner the following Friday night. I wasn’t originally invited to it. No reason I would be, considering I wasn’t in the wedding party or a member of the family. Ruger was Horse’s best man, though, so he had to be there. Apparently in his eyes, and in those of the club, we were officially a couple now, so Noah and I were invited, too.
It felt good to be included.
The wedding itself would be taking place out at the Armory, which seemed odd to me at first. They weren’t getting married in the building or courtyard itself, though. Out beyond the wall was a large meadow where people camped out for club functions. It backed into a grove of old-growth trees, forming a natural canopy that was perfect for a wedding. There were already tents set up along the edges, but the center and back were marked off with neon-orange ribbon that outlined an area for the ceremony.
I offered to watch the kids during the rehearsal, including Dancer’s two boys. We hit the play area inside the courtyard, and they all ran around like wild animals, shrieking and jumping off the swing set. The rehearsal dinner was in the courtyard, too, so I found myself helping the caterer set up while we waited. She was a friend of the club named Candace, and she had a wicked sense of humor.
I also met Marie’s mom, Lacey Benson, and her stepdad, John.
Lacey was … different.
She looked a lot like Marie. In fact, she could’ve been Marie’s sister, at least at first glance. But where Marie’s hair was wild and free, Lacey’s was in one of those styles you just know takes an expensive hair cut, double-processing, and a shitload of product to look so natural and perfect. Marie didn’t usually wear makeup. Lacey’s was flawless, and her clothes never seemed to wrinkle. She was the portrait of a stylish matron, except for the smell of cigarette smoke wafting around her.
She was poised, stunning, and utterly batshit crazy.
The crazy wasn’t subtle, either.
She had a manic energy that couldn’t be contained, and she hovered around Marie like a hummingbird, obviously overjoyed for her daughter. Just watching her was exhausting.
I learned that Candace was more than a nice person—she might possibly be a saint. No matter how many times Lacey made her rearrange everything, she did it with a nod and a gracious smile. This was a step beyond impressive, because Marie’s mother rearranged things seven times.
Then she rearranged an eighth, this time while people were actually serving.
After dinner, Lacey stood up and gave a long and rambling toast, telling us stories I was pretty sure Marie didn’t appreciate. We heard about how she didn’t like to wear clothes when she was a toddler, and was always stripping down in the grocery store. We heard about the time she’d decided to ride the neighbor’s goat … wearing spurs.
We also heard about when Lacey first met Horse, which led to an interesting side-ramble about jail, cops, anger management, her husband, and engagement guns.
Clearly feeling outdone, Horse’s mother got into the spirit and we learned he’d refused to pee inside the house for the first five years of his life, something his father had found hysterically funny and encouraged.
Dancer’s toast put both of them to shame, though. She stood in front of everyone and called Marie up for a special presentation. Then she pulled out the little stuffed horse she’d told us about the first night we’d met, along with a small bedazzled harness and matching leash.
Maggs and Em supplemented it with a tiny, toy-sized Harley for the horse to ride.
Marie laughed so hard she almost choked on her champagne. Horse smiled grimly, wrapping an arm around Dancer’s neck and squeezing her shoulder in an almost-hug. It transitioned to a neck-lock and prolonged noogie. She screamed and cried and kicked, but he didn’t let her go until she admitted she’d made the whole thing up, which none of us believed for a minute.
Noah and I left around nine, just as things were starting to get interesting. Guests had been arriving all day, camping out behind the Armory, and they joined the party once the official dinner events had ended. I was exhausted and my whole body ached, so I was happy to leave. I still had bruises, although thankfully no broken ribs this time. I collapsed into bed alone, wishing Ruger was with me.
The morning of the wedding dawned warm and perfect.
They’d taken a risk, planning an outdoor event in early October. It paid off, because there are few things more beautiful than fall in northern Idaho. The evergreen-covered hills were spotted with bright yellow and orange patches. The air had a sharp feel that made me think of that first burst of flavor when you bite into a honeycrisp apple.
It took all I had to keep Noah inside while I got ready. I knew he’d be filthy by the end of the day, but I wanted to at least start things out with him clean. Ruger hadn’t come home last night. I assumed he’d been partying with Hor
se all night, and I wondered about what they’d been doing …
There had been tons of people at the party last night, and a lot of them were female. He’d told me after the kidnapping that he didn’t want anyone else but me, that he’d be faithful.
He’d even given me a soft kiss good night when he’d walked us to the car.
But I wasn’t quite sure what our new arrangement was supposed to be, or where the limits stood. We still hadn’t talked about it. We weren’t having sex. Did that mean he’d been sleeping with someone else? Multiple someone elses?
Thinking about it made me feel sick.
I could just ask him. There were things he wouldn’t tell me, but I didn’t think he’d lie. I just wasn’t sure I wanted to hear the answer.
I pulled up to the Armory about an hour and a half before the ceremony was supposed to start. There were cars everywhere, and bikes, too. The girls had been busy that morning decorating. I saw Painter as I pulled up, and he raised a hand in a friendly wave. I walked around the Armory and let Noah join the pack of children running wild out there, because the courtyard was off bounds. They were busy setting up the reception in there.
Picnic leaned back against the wall, watching the kids with a thoughtful look on his face. Then he saw me and waved me over.
“How you doing?” he asked. I shrugged.
“Pretty good, I guess,” I said. Looking everywhere but his face, I managed to choke out something I’d meant to say the night before. “Thanks for helping me. I mean, last weekend.”
“No worries, never happened,” he said, cocking his head and studying my face. “But I’ve been meaning to talk to you.”
“Sure,” I agreed, because I owed him in a big way.
“Do you know what happened between Em and Hunter?” he asked bluntly. “She’s not herself, and she won’t say shit to me. That’s not normal—she’s always been my girl, the one who’d tell me everything. Not her sister. Now she’s closed off.”
I sighed and looked into his face. His blue eyes held concern, and I saw how much it hurt him to ask.