by Lana Grayson
“I’m all right...” The words rasped into silence. That was fine. I didn’t have anything good to say.
Martini hovered too close. “Brew, let me help—”
I tried to take her hand. She gasped and winced. An ugly, decay-yellow bruise spread over her hand, snaking up her wrist into deeper hues of green and blue. She pulled away.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I asked.
Thorne didn’t take his eyes from Rose. “Yeah. I’d like a goddamned answer too. Where the hell is my bike?”
“Thorne,” Rose said. “This is Martini. Martini, Thorne.”
Martini perked an eyebrow as she edged between me and the bastard who probably still carried a bullet reserved for my head. “Charmed.”
Thorne was never cordial. “Don’t fucking care. What the hell are you doing back, Brew?”
“You don’t call, you don’t write.” Keep swore from the stairs. “Didn’t tell us you were in town.”
“Wasn’t a social visit,” I said.
Lyn stomped past Keep. My brother didn’t have the balance to stand.
“And as fantastic as a family reunion is...” Lyn kicked over one of the bodies. The red stiletto nudged his leather jacket. His shirt rode up. Keep ducked out of her way as her profanity bit across the room. “Temple. Why the hell are Temple men trying to kill you in my club!”
“Lost your friends?” Thorne snickered. Rose elbowed him. He took her arm only to pull her closer.
Martini braced me as I sat up. “What happened?”
What happened? Good fucking question.
She wanted an answer.
I had nothing. No explanations. No pride to scrape together a lie, even to shield myself in denial.
What happened?
Nothing.
Nothing happened.
My gun hadn’t fired. My father hadn’t bled. Twenty-one years of mistakes, deceit, and betrayal festered deep, rotted my guts from the inside out, and scourged my every chance at redemption.
I had the shot. I had the opportunity. I had the memory of the curly haired six-year-old begging to play me a song on her toy piano while my father kicked the shit out of my mother upstairs.
But I didn’t have the courage.
I wasn’t in Heaven. I wasn’t in Hell. This was limbo. The absolute nothingness that existed between right, wrong, and vengeance. My father walked free, without the slightest fear prickling the ice in his heart.
Anathema made him untouchable. Even the DA didn’t have the balls to go for the death penalty when they built a strong enough case to drag his ass into a cell. He kept his secrets, and now that he was out, Anathema’s brothers trusted him, and Temple’s officers listened to him. His leadership secured both clubs the towns they chose, drugs they needed, and prices they demanded.
“I came to find my father,” I said.
Rose shifted away, edging closer to Thorne. The hot-headed president with more weapons than patience wrapped his arm tight around her. She relaxed, trapped within the embrace of a man more medieval warlord than MC president.
“Yeah, we met Blade upstairs,” Lyn said with a sneer. “Have a nice chat?”
“Sure. Real illuminating.”
Keep rubbed his face. Twice. He shook himself out of his stupor and helped me to my feet.
“You do it?” He asked.
Rose couldn’t look at me. Martini wasn’t as demure. Lyn didn’t even pretend.
Christ, what the hell was I worried about with my conscience? All I needed was their permission and they’d hand me the razor to slice my veins.
“No.” I ground my teeth. “Not the right time.”
Thorne didn’t like my answer, but blood was its own reward. He didn’t often stop to think of the consequences. “Does Rose gotta get hurt again before you take the shot?”
Rose protested, but her forgiveness was instant. I read her like a damned book. She knew Thorne only meant to protect her. She trusted him.
Like she should have trusted me.
But she never would—not if I failed to prove how much I loved her.
Either the assholes who attacked me punctured my lung, or the shame squeezed every last ounce of pride from my chest. I shuddered. The spike of my blood pressure didn’t help. It should have spurted my blood and sprayed it from the gaping hole in my chest where I ripped out my own heart to save my fucking life.
For the first time, I was glad Rose had Thorne. At least he’d take care of her. He’d protect her when I couldn’t and finish me off when I was no more use to them.
Martini’s fingers grazed my cheek. The gentle tickle was more like a sucker punch. Every time I looked at Rose, a cemented failure hardened in my chest. But Martini chiseled it away.
I had nothing to offer Rose.
I had everything to give Martini.
What the hell was she doing here after I left her broken and alone across the country?
“I didn’t kill him.” Standing hurt. I sunk to the ground. “My father is close to too many people, and they’d look for him if he was gone. It puts Anathema at risk. Targets Rose.”
Lyn pointed to the dead men on her floor. “Targets more than Anathema, don’t you think?”
“Yeah well, we don’t got many friends to worry about at the moment.”
She snorted. “Well, you have two less enemies.”
“Why the hell is Temple after you?” Keep ignored Lyn’s disgust and searched the men’s pockets. The cigarettes he kept for himself, the wallet he threw to Thorne.
“Long story.”
I figured Martini would smirk and draw the attention away from me. She didn’t move, only sucked in deep breaths to control her own pain.
“Then give us the abbreviated version,” Thorne said.
Hell if I even believed it. “I got in a fight with three MCs who planned on starting a drug war over a couple cartel style-assassinations.”
“Your drug war is bleeding on my floor.” Lyn tapped her shoe away from a creeping crimson stain.
“They know I’m here.”
“Fantastic.”
“You’re a liability,” Thorne said. “The longer you stay here, the more accidents we gotta bleach from Lyn’s carpets. Do your only fucking job and get out.”
“I can’t. My father is protected.” I clenched my jaw as Martini pressed a towel against the cut on my head. She usually went looking for trouble, but coming after me was the smartest move she made. She was lucky. I wasn’t about to tell her the danger she avoided. “He’s got a plan and a hell of a lot of allies. But if I stay here, Temple’s gonna start fucking with Anathema.”
“You’re just gonna let him go?” Keep cursed. “Fuck it, I’ll shoot the prick.”
“Please.” Rose didn’t look up. “It’s over, and I don’t want to think about it anymore. You guys need to forget about it too.”
I frowned. “Some things a man can’t forget, Bud.”
“What if I ask you to try?”
“Ask me anything else.” I swallowed my pride. “I ain’t gonna beg for a second chance. He’s living now, but so am I. I’ll take care of this. Just gotta get Temple off my ass.”
Martini shuddered. Her breathing unraveled as the minutes passed, like it hurt just to whimper a quick sigh. My vision cleared enough to see in the basement’s low light.
And I didn’t like what I saw.
Her eye was blackened. The bruise trailed down her neck, covered by nothing. No scarf. No shirt collar. The ink and its possessive hatred stained her skin. It was like she didn’t have time to wrap a scarf over her neck.
Like she escaped so fast she didn’t have time to cover what she was running from.
“You can’t shake Temple,” she murmured. “And you can’t let your father live.”
The shudder in her voice tapped a gun barrel against my head. I tried to get her to look in my eyes. Guilt stopped her. That I understood. But I didn’t expect the fear or the shame flaring her cheeks.
“Why are you h
ere, Darling?” I should have said how fucking bad I missed her, but the confusion growled the question instead. “I thought you were staying with Red?”
“Your father has a fifty thousand dollar bounty on your head.”
The room silenced. Rose’s cry was muffled by Thorne’s hand, clapping over her mouth.
“What?” I stared at her. “A bounty? Who told you that?”
“I was there when Temple’s president told Sacrilege about the bounty.”
There was more to it than that. Something she kept from me, something that deliberately hid the truth. But Martini was smoother than the awkward clip of her words. She was a born liar and tease, but even this she couldn’t spin. Whatever she saw terrified her enough to drag her ass three thousand miles across country to find me.
And not because she wanted me to protect her.
Because she wanted to rescue me.
“What the hell happened to you?” I touched the bruise on her cheek. She twisted away.
“Can we go somewhere and talk?”
Thorne didn’t apologize for being a Grade-A dick. “No.”
She ran a hand through her hair. The motion tugged at her shoulders and she winced. She hardened her expression before I tallied the marks on her skin.
I counted more bruises than pale softness. The injuries were new.
“Temple trapped Sacrilege,” she said. “They told Sam they owned the club now, and their first job was to finish off all the other officers in Kingdom. There’s not much of a war left, Brew. It’s a slaughter, and we’re next. They’re gonna kill both of us because we’re the only ones who were at the cottage.”
“Bullshit.” I spat and rubbed the blood from my lips. A couple punches to the head and suddenly I was thinking clearer than ever. “It’s not about the cottage. My father knew I was coming for him to settle the score for Rose. He put the bounty on my head to make it seem like he was working with Temple. He planned to kill me before I killed him. He’d cover it up with a drug war to save his ass and come out the victor with Temple.”
“Are you sure?” Keep squinted. “Dad’s smart, but to use Temple to fuck you?”
“He’s the reason Temple and Kingdom are at war. Temple had Kingdom under surveillance, and Kingdom was wise to it. That’s why they hired me to do the drops between them and Sacrilege. But Dad must have recognized me.”
That was why the envelope of money at the cottage had my name written on it. The money wasn’t a payment or a bribe. It was a warning I didn’t heed.
“And now he wants you dead,” Thorne said. “And he’ll fuck Anathema to do it.”
Rose bit her lip. “He almost did it too. You might have died.”
Lyn snorted. “Brew’s like a goddamned cat. Only seven more lives to go.”
Martini silenced them with a short-lived sob. She hated the tears. So did I.
“I’m so sorry,” Martini said. “I came as fast as I could. But...I got...Goliath was...”
I didn’t want to ask it. I already knew.
“What happened to you?”
Martini didn’t let the truth shame her. I wished I was as strong.
“Goliath found me.”
And I wished I were brave enough to hear the rest.
“He took me home, but Temple stormed my bar and held Red hostage. We escaped, and I might have burned down my bar. I’m not sure if I killed Toviel Aren.”
Thorne handed Rose off to Keep and paced the room, his hands alternating between his hair and his gun. “You think you killed the president of Temple MC?”
“He took a shotgun blast to the chest, but he was still living when I torched him with a Molotov and a bottle of Everclear.”
“Jesus fucking Christ!”
Lyn laughed, her green eyes glistening with a serpentine glee. “I like this girl, Brew. She can take care of herself.”
Martini didn’t share the proud smile. She never spoke the full truth in her life. Now was a shitty time to start. I’d take a thousand of her little white lies over her honesty now.
“What happened when Goliath found you?” I whispered.
Martini didn’t meet my gaze. She shifted against the floor. Uncomfortable.
No.
Hurt.
Rose breathed out first. She tugged on Thorne’s arm. A signal to give us privacy. She knew.
I couldn’t be alone with this confession. I didn’t trust myself to handle it.
“Did he hurt you?” I asked.
Martini’s act wasn’t convincing. “I can take care of myself. I did take the express route down the stairs though. That wasn’t fun.”
It wasn’t what I asked. “What did he do to you?”
“God, I need a drink.” Her laugh sounded more like a whimper. “Can I get you anything—”
I reached for her. She let me cup her cheek if only to focus on me and not the others in the room.
“Darlin’—”
“You already know. Why torture yourself?”
“Tell me.”
“It’s not the same, Brew. Don’t you dare blame yourself—”
“Tell me.”
She shed only one tear before masking her expression again. Not for the benefit of Rose or Thorne, my panicking brother, or the pacing Lyn. She tried to spare me from the truth and her fear and her pain.
She guarded me even though I failed to protect her.
“He raped me, Brew.”
Where was the gun against my head now? The rope around my neck? The poison rotting my gut?
She didn’t fight me. I lifted the back of her shirt. A crisscross of heavy-handed welts and bruises tore at her flesh.
A belt. A fucking belt.
“I’m fine,” she said. “I don’t care about what happens to me.”
“I do.”
“My only concern was to find you.”
“And mine should have been to help you.”
The honesty destroyed me. Rose sat only a few feet from me, tears on her cheeks. The absolute compassion and understanding resonating from the broken innocence of her gaze was just another slice of the blade in my heart.
I owed Rose everything—a lifetime of happiness, the promise of security, and the haunted, horrible moments of her past replaced with love.
But I couldn’t give her those things. Thorne got closer to her than she ever was with me, and his honesty and devotion were uncompromised. She wasn’t mine to protect anymore.
The one who needed me most knelt bruised and violated at my side, cleaning my wounds with a damp towel.
“I’m sorry.” There wasn’t much else to say, but nothing sounded so useless.
“I know.”
I sucked in a breath. My lungs refused it until her hand grazed mine. I didn’t deserve the touch.
“It ends now,” I said. “My father. The connection with Temple. Everything that has destroyed us and the club is because of him. It’s time for justice.”
“Brew.” Rose shook her head. “You can’t. Those men almost killed you. And if you stay here any longer, they will. You have to leave.”
I grunted as I stood. “Not until this is done.”
“Well, I don’t want it to be done.” She parted from Thorne and squared off against me again, just like she did from the day she learned to talk to the last time I pushed her away. “Not if it means putting you in any more danger.”
“You won’t be safe if he lives.”
“I wasn’t the one getting pummeled, Brew. You were.”
I swore. “What the hell were you doing here anyway?”
“Saving your life!”
“My life isn’t for you to save.”
Rose frowned. “Well, someone has to stop you from throwing it away all the damn time.”
“Thorne, take her home,” I said. “She shouldn’t be around for this.”
She shook off his arm. “Would you just listen to me?”
“Don’t have to.” The girl scared the ever-loving fuck out of me, and I wasn’t about to let her
see me crumble. “I do what’s best for you, Rose. Always have. Always will.”
“Oh my God, Brew. Listen to yourself. I don’t need you to kill for me. I need you to stay alive. Just talk to me and listen to my music and give me a hug every once in a while. Be a normal brother, for once in my life. I just want my big brother!”
“For Christ’s sake, Rose, I’m not your fucking brother!”
I said it before I realized what happened.
The snap of all goddamned common sense recoiled in my brain. It was a shot that should never have been fired, and a secret I never meant to reveal.
Martini’s hand drew away. Keep stared, his pupils blown with confusion instead of whatever poison he chose for the night.
“What?” Rose whispered.
“You heard me.”
“I don’t understand.”
Thorne swore. His scowl only upset Rose more. “Jesus Christ. How many fucking secrets does this family have?”
Rose’s eyes—innocent, wide, and the same damn color and depth I shared—filled with tears.
“You’re not my sister.” I hadn’t admit
ted the truth for twenty-one years. “You’re my daughter.”
“I can’t deal with this right now.”
It was all Rose said.
I poured my fucking heart out, scraped the secrets from my soul and the lies from my past, and she couldn’t deal.
I sat, bleeding and sweating, broken and shuddering, with twenty-one goddamned years of adrenaline surging through me, and she didn’t even look at me.
Neither did my brother, staring at me in the first lucid moment he caught in three months.
Keep didn’t recognize me, and it wasn’t the haze of the drugs causing it.
I didn’t recognize myself.
Rose stormed upstairs before Thorne grabbed her. Lyn followed, cursing every last man who wore an Anathema patch.
Rose didn’t want me.
Her entire life was nothing but a series of beatings, abuse, and negligence. Her mother—a twenty-something druggie piece of ass I tapped as a teenager—never wanted her. I thought what I did was right. I kept her, but then I threw her aside too.