Ravens Ruin MC: The Complete Series

by Marie James

  “She’s been dead to me since the second she spread her legs for that piece of shit Eric Quintal.”

  I expect the words to crush her. I anticipate her falling to her knees at the realization that she’s been a pawn her entire life. I wouldn’t put it past Miller to knock someone up the second he found out Donna was pregnant with my father’s child. His long con almost worked out for him, almost.

  She doesn’t crumble under the weight of her father’s belligerent confession. Going by the look on her face, she’s heard things just as harsh growing up, the same as me.

  Right before my eyes, she changes. She’s no longer the teasing woman who bit her lower lip when I called her into the room while Legs bounced up and down on my cock. She’s not the timid girl who tried to push Xena away in embarrassment when she was caught with her legs spread.

  The woman in front of me now is the girl who pushed open the door to room four and found that redheaded girl sucking my dick. This girl is done. She’s done with feeling, done with hurting, and fucking done with life. She no longer cares. Not for me or what her father thinks of her. She doesn’t give a shit what happens, she’s lost all reason to function.

  I shove Briar away, uncaring that his phone falls to the damp concrete and shatters.

  “Baby?” I reach for her, but her vacant eyes no longer look in my direction. “Zoe?”

  She sidesteps me, and by the time I feel the tug at my back, it’s already too late. The gunshot echoes thunderously around the room, and my world implodes.

  Chapter 38

  Candi

  A laugh nearly bubbles out of my throat at the sight of Briar’s stunned face, until I realize it’s my own father’s blood and brain matter rolling down his cheeks.

  Within seconds of using Lynch’s gun to silence my father’s relentless taunts, Ronan steps forward and cuts the rope around his neck. His lifeless body crumples to the floor, and all I can do is stare down at him.

  I feel nothing.

  There isn’t a hint of love I thought I felt for him left.

  There’s no remorse or wishful thinking that things were different.

  Even as his emotionless eyes stare up at me with creepy accusation, I feel nothing.

  A distant clatter manages to restart my heart, jolting me out of my trance, and I feel someone wrap their arm around me before tugging on my hands. Looking down, I see Lynch pulling his gun from my trembling fingers.

  I understand the action. He can’t allow the woman he’s fixing to kill any form of defense. That would make this a fair fight, and nothing’s fair when the Ravens Ruin MC is involved. I’ve taken away his method of revenge against my father. Surely, there are consequences for that.

  “I don’t care how fucking epic that was,” TJ says from somewhere behind me, “if anyone suggests we start letting women patch in, I’m moving to fucking Mexico.”

  An odd round of chuckles filter through the room, but my brain can’t focus on one single thing. I’m jostled, the sight of my father dead on the floor begins to fade into the distance. I do the only thing I can. I close my eyes and once again pray that my death will be painless. I can die happy knowing one other thing has been checked off my list. I’ll die knowing how it felt to love, even if that man is a monster. The only thing that would’ve made my life complete would’ve been being loved, but we don’t always get what we want, do we?

  Death isn’t so bad. It’s warmth and comfort. It’s a soft whisper promising everything will be okay. It’s the brush of a reassuring hand and soft kisses against my cheek. Had I known dying was so consoling, I would’ve made the transition long ago.

  “Baby?”

  I nuzzle into the angel of death, cooing my acceptance.

  “Open your eyes, Zoe.”

  They snap, obeying immediately. Only death isn’t what I thought at all. Death isn’t empty tunnels of light and peace and serenity. As it turns out, my ideal death is the cascading shower fall in Lynch’s bathroom, and his warm hands holding me against the expanse of his hard chest.

  I push away from him on instinct. I don’t want to die here, alone and naked in the shower with him serving as the only witness. At least in front of his men, my execution seemed honorable in some fucked up way. He reaches for me again, surprisingly giving me space when I inch further away, even though defeat marks his eyes.

  I’m naked. He’s naked, and I have no fucking clue how I got here or if anything is fucking real. It has to be a nightmare. Shit like this doesn’t really happen.

  My father’s harsh words filter in, and the urge to pull that trigger hits me all over again. It slams in my chest as my eyes dart everywhere looking for Lynch’s gun.

  He reaches for me again, getting one arm around my back before I try to push him away.

  “Get off me,” I hiss.

  “You’re safe, baby. Let me hold you.”

  I shove at him, clawing at his chest like a crazed, injured animal. He doesn’t budge. He only holds me tighter, even when blood blooms on his skin from my fingernails.

  “You were going to kill me!” I roar. The thought that he still might niggles in the back of my mind.

  I won’t be a hapless victim this time. I won’t beg and plead. I won’t reach for him as if his touch solves every fucking problem.

  “Get away from me,” I sob. “Please.”

  He holds me up, and I know without his arms around me I would collapse on the tiled floor of the shower and never stand up again. He’s strength where I am weak. I’ll always be weak, always leaning on someone and never able to endure any burden on my own two feet. It’s almost enough to wish for the death I shunned only seconds ago.

  I stand there, bracketed against his chest and sobbing until the water runs cold on my back.

  When he shifts to move us out, my fight is renewed.

  “I hate you! I hate you!” I step back and pound on his chest again, thundering blows that don’t even faze him. He stands there, and he takes it. I have no idea what his face says, no clue if he’s growing increasingly angry with my violence. I can’t focus on anything but the slow rise and fall of his chest as all of my hate and anger bleeds through my fists.

  I act then, taking numerous steps out of the shower. I throw a towel around my shoulders, uncaring that I’m naked and bolt for the door to his room. I can’t stay. I shouldn’t want a man that was willing to kill me. I can’t love a man that can look at me with cold, dead eyes and challenge my truth.

  He catches me before my trembling hand can grasp the doorknob. Of course, he does. There’s no getting away from him. Cat and mouse isn’t his game of choice because he won’t allow the split-second chance that his prey will escape.

  “Let me go,” I seethe, trying to twist myself out of his unforgiving arms.

  “We’re aren’t doing this again,” he warns in my ear. “I won’t let you walk away from me ever again.”

  “Please,” I beg fruitlessly. It only makes him grip me tighter.

  “You’re going to crash. The adrenaline from your first kill is going to wear off, and you’re going to be confused and disoriented. I’ll be right here with you when it happens.”

  The promise sounds more like a threat, but I don’t tell him so. I can already feel my energy zapping out of me by the second.

  I shake my head as he turns me in his arms. I don’t want his touch, but I crave it all the same. The warmth of his body draws me in, and my need to curl up in his lap while he pets me and tells me everything will be okay is overwhelming.

  “First kill?” I ask after running his words back through my foggy brain.

  “Yes,” he answers simply.

  He’s moving us now, pulling back the blankets on his king-sized bed and settling us in the middle, him against the headboard and me splayed on his chest. We’re getting his sheets wet, but he doesn’t seem bothered by it.

  “What did you do after your first time?” I don’t expect him to answer. He’s not going to tell me secrets or confess his sins to the woma
n he considers a traitor, but knowing that doesn’t keep the question from my lips. His voice, the rumble of his words against my ear are soothing, and I’m desperate for more.

  “I lost my virginity.” He sighs as if resigned to something before speaking again. “I was thirteen.”

  That news should shock me. It should jolt me back to life and reconfirm my need to escape this man, this clubhouse, and everything the Ravens Ruin MC touches, but I merely snuggle deeper into his embrace.

  “Carrie,” I mumble, my ability to speak slowly draining from me.

  “Yes,” he answers. He doesn’t stiffen under me or ask me how I know her name. I don’t have a damn clue how I recall that fact after everything that has happened today, but I’m not surprised. The news had shocked me, shook me to my core when Piper laid it on me as simply as if she’d said, “he likes scrambled eggs.”

  The subject reemerging at a time like this is only fitting. It’s just another way to mark our differences, to cement the fact that there never was a chance for us to be together.

  “She’d always been the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen,” he continues, his words ripping at my already shredded heart. “She had the silkiest blonde hair and mischievous blue eyes. I never thought I’d see another woman who compared to her.”

  His hold against my back tightens, and I want to sulk away, to go lick my wounds in peace.

  “And then a couple of months ago a dark-haired girl with fire in her eyes found herself watching me fuck some nameless chick. I was seconds from telling her to leave when I saw you peek around the door frame. It was like lightning hitting my chest. Right in the middle of my clubhouse, a single glance from a gorgeous girl eliminated every other woman from my memory. I was thunderstruck, born again. Nothing before you mattered, and nothing after you exists.”

  “You were going to kill me,” I remind him before sleep rushes in and washes everything else away.

  Chapter 39

  Lynch

  I’m lost in my own head, somehow conscious but not fully present. Zoe, that’s who she is to me now, Candi no longer exists, breathes calmly against me. It soothes the fear of what might happen when she wakes up, even though it’s inevitable.

  It’s been hours. The bright light that filled the room earlier has turned to only dusky hints of sunlight as nightfall rapidly approaches.

  The thump of music in the living room is familiar. What happened downstairs, the brutality of Miller’s death only affects one person today. The outcome may have been a little different than what any of us expected, but bloodshed and vengeance are a common occurrence around here. It’s a need we sate often.

  Zoe whimpers, shifting her weight slightly as I’m sure nightmares infiltrate her slumber.

  “Shh, baby,” I console and pull her tighter against me. It works, and she calms, just like she did the last five times she grew uncomfortable in her sleep.

  The need to tell her everything, to lay it all out on the line when she wakes is an internal battle I’ve been struggling with since she gave in to her body’s need to rest. I can confess my sins, vocalize all of my transgressions and hope she’ll still love me when the dust settles, but what if she doesn’t?

  What if she demands to be cut loose?

  What do I do then?

  I can’t let her walk away knowing details of the things that will land me in prison or earn a government-funded needle in my arm.

  Can I?

  The longer I mull over my future, the easier it is to recognize that I have to tell her. Not telling her, letting her believe what she wants, or some concocted truths of her own are even more dangerous. If I spill my guts and she still wants to leave, she’ll walk away with my heart, so what’s the fucking point of living after that anyway?

  I won’t force her to stay, but if she walks away from me, she’ll do it full of all of my truths and the full knowledge that I’m not going to change. She can walk away knowing that she was loved by the devil and survived because I won’t do a single fucking thing to harm her. Hell, I wasn’t capable of it when we were downstairs before the video arrived that saved her in the eyes of my men.

  My blood runs thick and hot with the need to teach TJ a fucking lesson for the way he handled her. Even knowing that I would’ve done the same for a woman that betrayed him, I want him to hurt, to feel the pain I felt when he gripped her head so hard she drew her own blood.

  I won’t however. He didn’t betray me. He followed orders as soundly as I’d expect any of my soldiers to do.

  Another whimper from Zoe pulls my dark thoughts back to her.

  She chose me.

  Over her own damn father, she chose me.

  That’s something with teeth. It’s something we can build a future on. I’ve never chosen anyone or anything over this fucking club, but I know with every beat of my black heart that she changes everything.

  She is everything.

  If she wanted me to shrug off my fucking cut and leave it in the dirt so we could walk off into the sunset hand in hand, I’d smile down at her and never look back.

  The gentle knock at the door pulls me from my sacrificial thoughts, and the only other woman in my life I could never walk away from slowly pushes the door open. This club is her destiny also. Walking away isn’t an option, no matter how much I dream of a different life.

  “Hey,” Molly whispers as she sticks her head in the door. “She still asleep?”

  I don’t answer her because it’s clear her friend is crashed on my chest.

  “I brought her some juice and crackers for when she wakes up.” Molly places the glass and plate on the bedside table.

  She doesn’t crinkle her nose or shy away from the fact that her closest friend is snuggled in my arms. She doesn’t act the way I would if I walked in and saw her doing the same against the chest of my best friend. A cold chill runs down my spine at just the thought of Briar touching her in any way that isn’t brotherly. I’d have to find a different way to torture him since his cock doesn’t seem to mean much to him.

  “She’s too pure for this life,” Molly whispers.

  I could disagree with her, argue that things changed downstairs, that Zoe won’t wake up the same woman she was when her beautiful brown eyes blinked away the sunshine this morning. However, it isn’t my story to tell. Molly won’t know the details of what happened unless Zoe wants to share them with her.

  “I never would’ve brought her here had I known she’d get sucked into the vortex.” My sister’s sad eyes watch her friend sleep.

  “I’m so fucking glad you brought her.” Seems my confessions are starting a little earlier than I’d anticipated.

  “This is going to change everything,” Molly says.

  “Things started changing the day she showed up,” I tell her.

  She nods her head softly, reaching down to brush some of Zoe’s hair from her cheek. She doesn’t say another word as she peers down at Zoe. After leaning in to kiss my forehead, she walks away, closing the door quietly behind her.

  When did my baby sister grow up? When did she turn into a beautiful, compassionate woman?

  Just moments ago she was drooling on her toys and getting on my nerves.

  Zoe shifts again, the click of the door enough to make her jolt. Sleepy, sad eyes look up at me.

  “Hey,” she whispers.

  “Hi,” I answer like a fool.

  “You’re here.”

  “Nowhere else in the world I’d rather be.”

  She smiles again, shyly dipping her chin so that she’s looking up at me through her eyelashes.

  I freeze when her lips press a soft kiss to my heated skin. She’s in that middle ground where what happened earlier seems so unreal she’s convinced herself it never happened, and I’m an asshole for not making her face the dark truth.

  My cock thickens at her thigh, and it doesn’t go unnoticed by her. I could easily roll her over and sink inside of her. It’s all I want to do, but it’s deceitful. It would be an abuse of wh
atever power I have over her. I’m tired of using her, hurting her, and praying she’ll still come back and ask me for more.

  “Zoe,” I whisper.

  She shakes her head, lips rubbing across my chest.

  “Just a little while longer,” she begs. “Just let me pretend.”

  “Take as much time as you need.”

  The reprieve doesn’t last long. Her tears fall, wetting my chest, and her hands tremble on my skin.

  “Today actually happened?”

  “Yeah, baby. It happened.”

  “I need to—”

  I grip her arm when she moves to climb off the bed.

  “Please don’t.”

  “I have to pee,” she says, hooking her thumb over her shoulder toward the bathroom. “I’m coming back.”

  I hate the sight of the t-shirt covering her body when she reemerges, but I know it gives her security, a means to shield herself.

  “I feel like I’ve been run over by a truck.” She climbs on the bed but sits at the end with her legs crossed too far for me to reach out and touch her.

  “It’s expected.”

  “Are you going to hurt me?”

  “Never.” The word gets caught in my throat.

  “Are your friends going to hurt me?”

  “I’ll kill them if they harm one hair on your gorgeous head.”

  “Even TJ?”

  “Especially him,” I answer honestly.

  “Do you love me?”

  “More than anything else on this Earth.”

  “Does that scare you?”

  I swallow the thick lump forming in my throat. “Terrifies me.”

  “Was that hard to admit?” A sparkle lights her eyes.

  I nod. “Don’t tell my men. They’ll think I’m a pussy.”

  “Love makes a man weak?”

  “Many in this world believe that’s true. My father’s favorite saying growing up was ‘pussies were made to be fucked not worshiped.’”

  She cringes. “He sounds like a winner.”

  “He was something,” I respond.

  “I have a million questions.” She focuses on her hands, refusing to look at me.