“I can't just leave Reba here,” I say, even though I really could. Not only can she take care of herself—she says all good Southern belles know how to kick serious 'booty' if needed—but pretty much everyone here likes Reba. There's not a soul on this property that would refuse her a ride. Except, you know, maybe Crown.
“Reba's just fine, and you know it,” he says, his moss green eyes taking me in with a flicker of amusement and just the tiniest spark of anger. He rubs a hand over his mouth and the dark stubble surrounding it. “Gidge, you're already in deep enough shit as it is.”
“Cat knows,” I say, and the words come out a breathy sigh.
“Yeah, Cat knows,” Crown tells me as I look up, and up, and up toward that handsome face of his. He has a nice square jaw, a full mouth, and green eyes that drop panties with a single glance—and trust me, they drop a lot of panties. In my humble opinion, Crown is a whore. He got his name by getting drunk on a whole bottle of Crown Royal whiskey—back when he was still a hang-around with the club—and ended up butt-ass naked on the roof with a groupie sucking his dick. Whore. That's what he is, no matter how charming he might seem at times.
“Fucking great,” I say, getting to my feet as Crown just stands there and watches me stumble. Thanks for keeping your mouth shut, you asshole, I think as I take deep, steadying breaths and watch the world tumble and spin around me. But I know better than anyone that Crown—as well as the rest of the club—doesn't owe me shit. The only reason they associate with me at all is because of Cat. “I'm gonna tell Reba I'm leaving so she doesn't worry.”
Crown crosses his big, muscular arms over his chest, leather vest crinkling with the motion.
“What?”
“Your friend's just fine, Gidge. And putting it off won't make it any easier.”
I close my eyes and resist the urge to punch the apple tree in frustration.
Once upon a time, I liked having Crown watch out for me, knowing that he'd be there if I needed him. Now I realize that he's more like a glorified prison guard. He's there not only to keep me safe, but to keep me period.
I feel like screaming.
Instead, I open my eyes and start hiking into the shadows of the trees, Crown silent and steady behind me.
Walking into the clubhouse after dark is like walking into a brothel. The whole place smells of smoke and sex, booze and leather and motor oil. I used to find these smells comforting. How disturbing is that? But I didn't know any better. And at the time, Cat didn't care much what I saw so long as I was safe here. After my sisters died, and he became president of the club … that's when everything changed.
Grief chokes my throat, but I ignore it. What's the point? Crying won't bring Queenie or Posey back.
“This is far enough,” Cat says, intercepting us just inside the doors of the old warehouse. He acts like I've never seen people having sex before, men in leather with flies undone grunting in time with the yowling moans of groupies.
One look at the red eyeliner and black shadow on my face, lips the color of blood, my curly hair straightened into a dark satin wave … Cat stares at me like I am one of those moaning groupies with her skirt pushed up around her hips.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” he asks me, looking at my scarlet halter-top and leather pants like he wants to burn them. This from a guy who lives his life dipped in sin, who is sin incarnate. He's the master of drugs, weapons, and prostitution—a kingpin, practically a mafia boss. And what am I? Just a symbol of all that he's lost.
I open my mouth to respond, pausing when one of the side doors opens and several more members of the club walk in, dressed in denim and leather cuts, motorcycle jackets and boots. I recognize three of them right away—Sin, Grainger, and Beast, three more of my father's officers. Road captain, sergeant-at-arms, and enforcer respectively.
While the rest of the men veer off, heading for the large bar in the corner of the warehouse (it's open twenty-four seven in this stupid fucking place), the three officers make their way straight to us.
“Shit,” I curse under my breath, but Cat hears me anyway.
“Shit is right,” he says as the five men make an intimidating circle around me, cloaked in their matching leather vests. Each one has a patch on the front right side with their name and position in the club. I can't see any of their backs obviously, but I know that if they were to turn around, I'd see a big decorative patch in the center with a black moon and a red sun, eclipsed so that only a sliver shows on the right side—a devil's grin dipped in blood. “You run off on me, and you've got more than just one person to answer to.”
I stand there with a straight back, eyes fixed straight ahead. On my right, Sin taps his tattooed hand against his forearm, this rhythmic motion that threatens to steal my attention away from the corrugated steel wall.
“These men work overtime to keep you safe, Gidget.”
I don't respond to Cat's statement. My heart is racing, and I feel … well, I don't know what I feel, but it's definitely not a comfortable feeling to stand in the middle of a warehouse with a black floor and a bar and men doing coke on tables in the corner. Out back is my daddy's chop shop and beyond that, warehouses filled with shit I don't want to know about. Worst of all is the hotel on the far side of the property, where both men and women sell their bodies for the club.
My stomach turns, and I have to shut my eyes again to hold back a rush of bile.
“You need to run from your daddy's devil about twice as fast as I need to run from my daddy's version o' God.” Reba is always telling me to leave (I’m always telling the same damn thing to her), but where she feels a familial and religious obligation toward her parents and her little brother … my family is blood in and blood out.
My eyes open and I glance around at my father's men.
“What do you want me to say?” I ask. My voice is quiet, but strong. My mother taught me that. She taught all us girls that. It's just … I'm the only one left. “Does sorry work?” I ask, realizing too little, too late that there's too much attitude in those three words for Cat to let this go.
I see my father's jaw clench tight, muscles ticking behind that dark beard of his.
“Ho-ly shit,” Crown curses from behind me. That's when I know I'm truly in deep crap here.
“You've sure got a mouth on you,” Cat says, maintaining that gruff wiseman bullshit he developed after my sisters were murdered. Before that, he was as much a loser as the customers he sells to, just another addict who cheated on my mom and drank too much. The difference between my father now and two years ago … night and day.
“Believe it or not, I was born with it,” I say and that's when he snaps.
Something happened in the club today. I'll never know what—even the president's daughter isn't privy to that information—but whatever it was, it was bad.
“You smart mouth little shit,” Cat snaps, his red-brown eyes flashing with anger. The lines in his face crinkle as he leans down toward me. At six foot three, he's not quite the hulking monster that Crown is, but I'm only five ten so all the men surrounding me, they tower up above like leather bound trees with dark frowns and blurry pasts. “Get your ass home and clean your fucking face before your mother sees you.” Cat pauses and looks down at my shiny skintight leather pants, molded to my legs and the round curves of my hips like a dozen groupie girls that probably hung out here today. “I want you to leave those clothes with Beast; he's taking you home and staying there.” Cat looks up at Beast, a man who makes people disappear for a living. Fan-fucking-tastic.
Maybe my dad hasn't changed at all, if that's the man he entrusts to keep his wife and only surviving daughter safe?
The thing is … there aren't any souls on this earth who'd even think of challenging Beast. Born Catcher Coffey—isn't that a great name?—in Nashville, Tennessee, the man's a former MMA champion turned Death by Daybreak henchman. He's tall, wide, muscular, and covered in tattoos and piercings. Like, model for GQ level ba
d boy. One half of his head is buzzed short, the rest of his dirty blonde hair combed over to one side. With the beard, the nose ring, and the massive black and red eclipse tattoo on his right arm, he looks like a fucking beast.
A flutter takes over my belly and my breath catches a little. With five asshole bikers around me, I can only hope nobody notices.
“Beast, burn 'em,” Cat says, and then he's walking away—just like that.
Thing is, if this was it, the only punishment I'd get from him, I'd be happy with it. But this isn't over. Cat saves his dirty laundry for our home, not the clubhouse. And anyway, since he stopped the drugs and actually decided to step his ass up as leader of the Daybreakers, he's honed his patience to a fine point, one that seems specifically designed to drill me in the skull. He'll think of an awful punishment and hit me with it later.
“Cat,” I say, turning to follow his path as he walks between empty tables and meanders toward the back door, where the rest of the boys came in earlier. As soon as he twists the knob and opens it, I know at least one of the punishments he's rigged up to swing my way: he’s going to sic Gaz on me at some point.
My brother, Gaz, storms in, sees me and lets this look of pure rage flash over his features.
We lock eyes for a moment and it takes me what feels like forever to remember that once upon a time, we used to be friends. Once upon a time, before I realized that even if I was the princess in the fairytale, I was locked in a tower. And the four guards I'd thought were there to protect my honor? They were really monsters destined to destroy my glory.
“I'm gonna have a really fucking awful senior year with you four shadowing me all the goddamn time,” I snap, not looking at any of them and turning to head out the warehouse door.
“See you at breakfast,” Sin calls out, and I glance back to see Beast lift two tattooed fingers in acknowledgement.
Breakfast. Fuck.
If Sin thinks he'll be seeing Beast for breakfast then … they're on shift again.
These four assholes.
It's like sophomore year all the hell over again.
“Thanks for the ride,” I snap sarcastically as I open the front door and find yet another Daybreaker in my mother's living room. Beast relieves him from babysitting duty at the same time my mother appears in the doorway to her fancy new kitchen, bought and paid for with blood money.
The whole thing makes me sick—twice as sick as the pot and booze that are just now starting to wear off. I wish I'd stolen two bottles of Jameson from the club's bar and drank them both. Maybe then I'd be in a coma instead of standing here watching my mother look at me like I'm some kind of club whore—like she used to be.
“Are you hungry, baby?” she asks, trying to keep her voice even, neutral. It's a nice act, but I'm not about to fall for it. My dad might have an infamous temper; my mother's is legendary. Now, in her late forties with a soft smile and an apron, she looks like the domestic sort. But I know the truth.
I've seen my mother fucking other men in the club while my dad plowed a groupie not ten feet from her. I've missed days of school because both she and Cat were too busy partying to take me. And I lost my sisters because of this awful life and all the awful strings attached to it.
“Don't act like you care,” I tell her and see her mouth tighten into a thin line.
I move past her and up the stairs, Beast following along behind me.
“You shouldn't treat your mama like that,” he tells me when I hit the second floor and pause, turning to look at him like he's stupid. We've been through this before. I know how dangerous Beast really is. He might have a warm Southern drawl and eyes the color of a robin's eggs, but he's just like all the rest of them—dangerous, unpredictable, deadly.
“Why are you up here?” I ask, and then pause when he reaches out and hooks an inked finger under the narrow strap of my top.
“Cat wants the clothes,” he says, and I grit my teeth. No way in hell I'm giving up a hundred and twenty dollar leather pants.
“Fine,” I snap, and then I tear the red satin over my head and throw it at him.
Even though I'm not wearing a bra, and my tits are exposed, Beast doesn't skip a beat. He catches the fabric in his hand and then just waits there, looking at me like he expects me to strip off my pants next.
I feel my nipples pebble, hardening painfully in the suddenly charged air between us.
“I don't want what happened last time to happen again,” I tell Beast, crossing my arms over my chest. He watches me, like he's still in the ring, sizing up his opponent. The way he watches me … turns my body to ice and then fucking melts it. “I don't,” I repeat, and I can't tell if I'm talking about the fear … the murders … or the sex.
Beast, who always smells like books because he spends so much goddamn time sitting in my grandmother's library doing … whatever it is he does for the club, leans in close to me and puts one, large hand on the wall near my head. This close, I can feel the heat of him, hear the rustling of his leather vest, remember the way he tastes …
“It won't,” he says, and the finality that rings in those two words almost scares me.
I step back suddenly, heart racing, warmth flickering between my thighs. I feel hot, almost like I'm burning. My skin feels like a shell I want to crack open, just so I can escape. Disappearing into my room, I shove my leather pants to the floor, kick them under the bed and then grab a pair of cheap pleather ones from my dresser. Tossing those into the hallway, I keep my eyes locked tight and refuse to look at Beast again.
From experience, I know what happens when we're alone together.
Beast, he'll ruin me.
They'll all ruin me.
Hell, they already did.
Eight years ago …
The hazy smoke used to bother me, but I'm used to it now.
“It smells good,” I tell Queenie and Posey, watching as they exchange a glance I won't understand for years. “Like daddy.”
“Daddy's an asshole,” Queenie tells me, trying to put a pair of white earbuds on me. “Gidget,” she warns when I shy away, trying to peep around the corner of the partition blocking off this part of the room. Queenie and Posey put it there a long time ago; I don't remember when. What I do remember is that I used to be able to see all the kissing and hugging, the cards and the glasses filled with amber liquid. I can still hear the laughter and the screams, the shouts that I don't understand, but I can't see anything anymore. “I want you to wear the headphones.”
“But why?” I whine, because I don't understand why my sisters look so nervous being here, why they hate it so much. We've been coming here after school for as long as I can remember. Later, of course, I'll realize that bringing a nine year old, a fourteen year old, and a sixteen year old to sit in a den of fucking, drinking, snorting, and shooting up is probably one of the more disgraceful acts a parent can commit. In that moment … it's all that I know.
“It'll keep you smiling,” Queenie tells me because she's the oldest so of course she knows better. Her red-brown eyes look into mine, crinkling at the edges. “I love you, Gidgie,” she tells me and I feel my lips split into a grin. I might be missing teeth, but I know that Queenie thinks I'm pretty anyway. She tells me every day.
After that, I know I'm going to wear the headphones if that's what she really wants me to do. It won't stop mommy from stumbling over here drunk, wearing high heels and swinging her bleach blonde hair around in a glossy wave. It won't stop the crashing horror of a bar fight, smashing through our partition and knocking it into Posey's face so that she gets a nosebleed. And it won't keep my dad's friend, Sin, from popping his head around the corner to check up on us.
He looks different than the other guys because his face is all smooth instead of scraggly like daddy's. I like that. His arms are decorated with all sorts of fun things—an American flag, a pair of bright red lips with white-white teeth, a black ball with the number eight on it. I could stare at him forever, I think, and keep
finding new things to look at.
“I've got Nellie's keys,” Sin says today, before I get a chance to slip the earbuds in. “I'm taking you girls home.” I know that Sin's just a prospect—daddy says so—but for whatever reason, I trust him. He smiles a lot, lets his lips quirk to the side in a way that reminds me of a wolf. I love wolves; they're my favorite animals.
“We're not supposed to be there alone,” Queenie says, perking up at the news and lifting her chin like she's the matriarch of this family. I suppose that she is. After all, Mom is usually sleeping or drinking or hanging out at the clubhouse. With her long, dark curls and her rust colored eyes, Queenie looks almost as regal as her name sounds. Sometimes, I wish she was my mom instead.
“I'll hang around a while,” Sin says, leaning against the side of the partition with a strange look on his face, like maybe he's the only person in the room that's bothered by us being there. I've noticed that whenever we show up at the clubhouse, Sin stops drinking, puts down his cigarette. If he's got a girl on his lap, he pushes her aside, and he watches us with eyes the color of stars, a light silver-gray that seems to twinkle if he looks at you too long. “Just for a while,” he repeats, but what he really means is all night because my parents won't be coming home.
They never do on Saturdays.
“Get your things, Gidget,” Queenie tells me, putting her iPad back in her bag and standing up. Her short skirt swishes against her thighs, and I notice one hand clench into a fist in the fabric. It's squeezed so hard that when she notices me looking and releases her fingers, I can see moon-shaped crescents on her palm.
That's the first time I understand that maybe, just maybe, our life isn't exactly normal.
“I've got your bag,” Sin tells me, grabbing my white and purple backpack with one hand and watching me carefully. He looks at the three of us like he'd die to protect us. At first, I thought that was just because he was a part of the club; it was his job to make sure the vice president's kids were okay.
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