by Jessica Ames
“Watch your fucking mouth.”
We’re so busy smarting off at each other that neither of us notice the door opening and the doctors filing out until Sasha demands, “What the hell is going on?”
I give her friend a dark glare before I turn to Sasha.
“I was just getting to know your housemate.”
Sasha’s eyes slide towards Lucy and again, I glimpse her discomfort and uncertainty for a moment before the walls come back up. She was never this closed off to me before. I hate that she is now because it makes it hard as hell to read her.
I jut my chin towards the room. “What’s going on?”
“Just the doctor’s rounds. You did the test?”
“Yeah, Sash. I did the test. Time to explain things.”
“I already explained. I’m not going over this again. It’s done. We’re no longer the same people anymore, so just leave it.”
I clench my jaw. “Then there’s nothing else to fucking say, is there?”
I head out to the car park and climb on my bike. It’s a beautiful machine, all chrome and custom painted along the fuel tank. The power of the machine between my legs as I start it up reminds me who I am and what I’m about. As I rev the engine, I feel my anger melt away a little. A ride will clear my head, so instead of turning right out of the hospital entrance and heading back towards the clubhouse, I take a left and head for the ring road. The traffic is busy but moving, and I lane split to keep my wheels spinning. The urge to hit the open road and not look back is overwhelming, but the Untamed Sons are not without enemies. Leaving the territory without a properly planned route is dangerous, and I have no intention of calling my road captain, Titch, and asking for those details. Instead, I just ride aimlessly around Kessington until I feel the rage leaving me enough to return to the clubhouse.
Zack, the kid on the gate, lets me through and I pull my bike into my space near the front doors. As I kick down the stand, my head is full of the shit that happened at the hospital. I’m more convinced than ever that something more went on between Sin and Sasha, but getting anything out of her is impossible.
I stride across the tarmac and into the clubhouse to find the common room almost empty. Fury is sitting in the corner, staring at nothing.
“Where the hell is everyone?” I ask him.
His eyes raise to meet mine and I see the moment his demons back down in them and he comes into the present.
“A run.”
“Why aren’t you with them?”
“They don’t trust me to be… calm.”
He doesn’t say this with any malice, but just states it as a fact.
I trust my brothers, though, so if Fury didn’t get an invite to the party, there’s a good reason for it. I arch a brow, blow out a breath and then head for the bar. Melody slips behind it, flicking her red hair. She doesn’t ask what I want to drink, just reaches for the top shelf Scotch and pours me a good measure before sliding it in front of me.
“Thanks, sweetheart.”
She beams at the praise, ducking her head, so her hair curtains her face. These bitches are like little girls, seeking daddy’s approval. It’s pathetic.
I knock the drink back in one go and slide the glass back on the bar. When Melody moves to pour me another, I shake my head. She’s nothing like Sasha was at her age. She was bold, ballsy and didn’t take shit. These club bunnies just roll over every time someone speaks to them.
“I’m done.”
I push up from the bar and head to my office and once I’m in the quiet of the room, I let my mind go back to that day—the day Sasha left me. I ignore the quagmire of pain I’m wading through and try to recall exactly what the fuck happened in the run up to her walking out.
And the only thing I can remember is I sent my brother on a protection detail—to take care of Sash while I was out of town for the afternoon.
Fuck. Did I push them together?
10
Sasha
Lily-May wakes for a few hours and is fussy. I’m shredded watching my child suffer. Every whimper breaks my heart. Every tear tears me apart. The pain I see in her eyes is like a knife to the gut. If I could trade places with her, I would in a heartbeat.
Sitting at her bedside, watching her toss and turn, gives me too much time to think about the past and what happened. I told Rav I would get a paternity test done if he did the test for Lily-May, but I haven’t done anything yet. It doesn’t feel good to have gone back on my word, but I’m fucking terrified of finding out the truth. My skin hasn’t stopped crawling since Rav brought it up. She can’t be Sin’s. He doesn’t get to dirty any part of my daughter. If Rav isn’t her dad it would break me even more. Sin took so fucking much. I won’t let him take this too. The truth will give Rav or Sin power in her life, and I will kill Sin before I allow him anywhere near her.
I close my eyes, trying to calm my cantering heart, and push out the dark thoughts creeping into my mind. If she’s Sin’s, it won’t change anything about how I love my daughter, but for her sake I hope her father isn’t a monster.
There’s a knock on the door and both me and Lucy glance towards it. Through the glass, I can see the outline of someone I never expected to see here.
Nox.
He doesn’t wait for us to grant him access, but pushes inside as if he owns the place.
Lucy comes to her feet, stepping between us, a circus ringmaster standing between the lion and the audience. Her intention is sweet, but unnecessary. I’m not scared of Nox.
His eyes crawl over my face as he takes me in. I feel like he’s trying to pull all my secrets from the deepest of my vaults with that look. I keep my shutters pulled firmly down.
“No, no more Untamed Sons,” Lucy says, although I hear the tremble in her words.
Nox’s eyes move over her body with a lingering look that has his mouth quirking at the corners, pulling into a smirk.
“And who are you?”
Before things get out of hand, I intervene, stepping forward.
“What are you doing here?” I demand.
His expression turns serious. “I want to talk.”
I arch my brow at him. “Now you want to talk? You weren’t that open to the idea the last time I saw you.”
“Shit changes.”
He stares at me, his gaze hard and unyielding until I glance away. I don’t like the way he’s looking at me, as if he’s seeing past the bullshit to the scared, broken girl underneath.
“I’m kind of busy, Nox.”
My hand goes to my daughter’s stomach and he watches the movement with an unreadable expression.
“It won’t take a second.”
I don’t want to leave Lily-May, but he’s not going to get out of my hair until I talk to him, so I let out a huff and mutter to Lucy, “Stay with Lil.”
Tingles fill my stomach as I follow him out of the room, my eyes locked on the Untamed Sons insignia filling the back of his kutte—a crowned skull wearing a pair of wings, the top rocker reading ‘Untamed Sons’, the bottom ‘London’. What the hell does he want to talk about?
He leads me out into the corridor and then out of the main entrance to the outside seating area. There’s no one about, so he signals for me to take a seat on the bench furthest from the entrance. I do, but only because I want this shit over fast, so I can get back to my daughter.
“I’ve been thinking a lot about things since I saw you last.”
“Did you come all this way to tell me that?” I snap at him.
“Sash, I know you. I’ve known you pretty much my whole fucking life. We grew up in this club together.”
Cold swamps me at his words.
“So what? Shit changes.” I throw his earlier words back at him, which earns me a frustrated glare.
“I know you’re hiding something about what the fuck happened between you and Sin.”
Glacial fingers crawl over my skin at his words. I don’t want him digging around in the past. I want to forget what happened. I do
n’t want to relive that nightmare.
“I’ve got nothing to hide. It happened. I left. End of story.”
He doesn’t let it go, as I expect. If anything, he becomes more persistent. “I know you, Sash. And I know him. He’s lying out of his arse, but you’re lying too. I want to know why.”
“I thought he told you what happened,” I sneer at him, squirming internally at where this conversation is heading.
“Yeah, well, I’m asking you.” He huffs out a breath as his eyes lock on mine. “If something happened, we need to know.”
Cold swamps me at his words and I lean forwards on the bench, clasping my hands in my lap in an attempt to hide they’re trembling. I don’t want to go down this path, not with my child struggling in a hospital bed. All I want to focus on is Lily-May. I can’t deal with this, too. I can’t deal with being so close to the club, with seeing Rav and the brothers. Seeing Sin. I thought I could, but I was wrong.
My walls are fracturing at the look in his eyes. The stress of dealing with Lily being so sick, of dealing with Rav and facing Sin, of having someone probing at my defences is making me weaker. It’s too fucking much. I’m strong, but even the strongest person can break under the right pressure. Hard words I can take. Rav’s hatred, I can handle, because I hate me too. Sin lying I can deal with because it lets me hide under the blanket of denial, but Nox looking at me with softness swirling behind the stone cold glare is what finally breaks me.
A lone tear streaks down my cheek.
“Just leave it alone, Nox, okay?”
“No, not okay. Where did it happen? How did it happen?”
“I don’t remember.”
I do remember. I remember every fucking detail of that night. It’s branded into my soul.
“You don’t remember fucking your old man’s brother?”
I don’t answer as a flashback from that night dances in front of me. The sounds he made as he pumped into me, the way he held my wrists down as he took what wasn’t his to take. I’m going to splinter into a thousand pieces if Nox keeps this up.
“How did you end up shagging? Tell me,” he interrupts my thoughts and my defences shatter like a mirror.
My breath hitches. “It wasn’t—”
“Did you seduce him first? Was it dark, like he said?”
“Yes,” I gasp. The room had been pitch-black. There were no lights on, which made everything else heightened. I remember the sound of his breath, his belt dropping, the taste of my salty tears.
I’m struggling to breathe as more memories flood me.
“Did he make the first move?”
“Stop! Please… stop!” I fist my hands over my ears, trying to block his words out.
“You didn’t fuck him, did you?” He pauses and it feels like the world takes a breath before he says, “He raped you.”
My whole body jolts at his words. Pain lances through my chest as my skin crawls. The dirt I’ve tried so hard to wash away for years is suddenly covering me and I can’t hide it any longer.
Another tear falls, then another.
“Nox, please. I’m begging you.”
“Sash, he raped you, didn’t he?” he presses, ignoring my pleas. “That’s why you can’t stand the sight of him. That’s why you ran. I fucking knew something was going on. You were the most loyal woman. There’s no way in hell you’d willingly fuck Sin, and you’d never leave Rav unless you didn’t have a choice.”
I surge to my feet and he follows me up, all six-foot-three of him towering over my smaller frame. Without thought, I shove at his chest hard, but he doesn’t move an inch. Then I scream in his face, “I told you to leave it alone!”
He takes this without a word, before his face contorts into a mask of rage that has my stomach twisting. I see the anger burning in his eyes as he takes me in and for the first time, I feel fear.
“I’m going to gut him.”
My brows draw together as realisation dawns, as Sin’s lies fall apart. He told me no one would listen. He told me no one would care. He told me no one would ever believe a filthy slut like me, but Nox is here, spitting fire and standing in my corner.
Disbelief makes my words come out breathy as I peer up at him through watery eyes. “You believe me?”
“Yeah, I believe you.” He tears a hand over the scruff of hair covering his head and roars a, “Fuck!” into the air.
My arms wrap around my middle as I watch him unravel, my breath dragging out of me in heavy pants as more tears threaten to fall. He steps towards me and wraps his thick arms around me, squeezing me until my ribs hurt.
“That fucking cunt is dead,” he whispers against my hair. It’s not a threat. I know Nox can fulfil that promise and fear swamps me.
I shake my head. “You can’t tell anyone else. Promise me.”
He pulls back and glares at me with disbelief. “No fucking way am I promising that.”
I grab at his arm and shake him. “Please.”
His jaw tightens and his eyes blaze. I step back a little. “He has to pay. He never had the right to do that. Not to you. Fuck, Sash, never to you. He signed his own death when he put his hands on something that didn’t belong to him.”
He grabs my face, using his thumb to wipe away a few stray tears.
“You might have belonged to Rav, but you belonged to the club too. We all loved you. You were family. And no fucker messes with family, even that bastard.”
I shake my head, trying to clear the blood pounding in my ears. “Just because you believe me doesn’t mean anyone else will. Rav’s never going to believe his little brother…” I break off, unable to say the words that make me feel unclean. I lick my lips. “No one will believe me over Sin.”
His brows knit together. “Is that what he told you? Is that the shit he made you believe?” Nox paces in front of me, his steps sharp. The anger rolling off him is barely contained.
Desperation dogs my steps now. This can’t come out. No one can know my dirty secret.
“He was right. Look at what’s happened since I’ve been back. No one doubted him! It was me they all called a fucking slut, a fucking whore! It’s me Rav hates! They all believe him!”
“I believe you, and no one believed Sin’s bullshit story.” He clenches his jaw and mutters another, “Fuck!” before his eyes come back to me. “He’s why you left. He’s why you don’t know who the father of your kid is.”
I feel laid bare to him, naked, and I don’t like it. I want to build my walls back up and protect myself, but the bricks are gone and there’s no way to fix this. Now that this secret is out there, there’s no hiding it. Shame crawls over me. I close my eyes, the only thing I can do to block this out.
“Rav needs to know.”
My eyes pop open as panic attacks me.
“No.”
“Yeah, Sash. He deserves to know why you walked out.”
“No matter the reason, I still left him. I still turned my back on him. Do you think this will change that fact? He hates me. Why make it worse?”
“This changes everything.”
“You can’t tell him.”
“Yeah, sweetheart, I can. I’m not keeping something this big from my president—from my friend.”
My chin wobbles as more tears threaten. I need to get hold of myself, but I can’t. I’m unravelling as fast as Nox is. I never thought anyone would find out the truth and I feel soiled by it.
“Nox, please. He’ll never get over his brother betraying him. Sin’s his only family. Me, he already hates, and I’ll take that hate, if it saves Rav from knowing the truth.”
“I meant what I said. Sin’s going to pay for this,” Nox tells me. “This won’t go unpunished.”
He strides off towards the car park, kicking a trash can as he goes. It doesn’t move, probably screwed into the ground, but I hear his roared curse and shiver.
I let him go. I don’t think I could stop him anyway. He’s on the warpath.
Tears clog my throat as I watch him walk awa
y. Just because he believed me, doesn’t mean Ravage will.
But now everyone will know my secret.
Because Nox isn’t going to keep this quiet. Nox isn’t going to let Sin off the hook.
Which means everyone is going to find out how I was overpowered and defiled by a man I was supposed to be able to trust.
Fuck.
11
Ravage
The common room is full of brothers, club bunnies and a few regular hangarounds. There’s a buzz in the air, a party atmosphere as the booze flows freely and the girls make the rounds. Noelle is straddling Levi—the club’s secretary—his jeans halfway around his thighs, as she bounces up and down on his cock, her head thrown back as she moans. Her skirt is rucked up around her hips showing the globes of her arse and one tit is exposed as Levi plays with it.
On the other sofa, Melody is giving head to Titch. Her cheeks hollow out every time she moves up and down his shaft and his eyes are squeezed shut in the throes of ecstasy.
Across the room, Daimon is standing by the pool table with Whizz and a couple of other brothers, while Fury watches on from the sidelines, his brows drawn together. I don’t want to think what is going through that fucker’s head right now.
The only person missing is my brother, that backstabbing bastard—Sin.
It’s a good thing. How I feel right now, I might slit his fucking throat.
I try to drown out Noelle’s mewls as she reaches her climax and gesture to Kyle behind the bar to turn the music up. I don’t need to hear her screaming, and Noelle is vocal.
The smell of pussy, weed and cigarettes is heavy in the air. It soothes the demons in me, pushes them back down to safer levels. This is home, and this is just another normal Wednesday night for the club.
This is also what I love about my club. No one tells us what to do or how to do it. No one judges our decisions, unless they affect the club directly. If you want to fuck a bunny in the middle of the room, that’s your fucking choice. No one will say shit about it.