I toss my hair over my shoulder and level a pitying glare on Grainger. There's a reason I've always hated him. He has no manners: he's a rude, crude, asshole who has no idea how to treat a woman. No idea how to treat any other human for that matter. I don't know anything about him except he always seems hell-bent on making me as miserable as possible when he's around. Too bad all that hate makes me want to fuck him.
Turning back to face the gloom in front of me, I blink through darkness and shadows to see a kid tied to a chair. Fear lances my chest as he lifts his head to look at me, tape across his mouth, ropes on his wrists and ankles. His gray eyes meet mine, and I almost topple over. He can't be more than a year older than me at most. He's just a kid. A kid. A fucking kid.
“Baby girl,” Cat says, his voice saccharine sweet and full of mocking derision both, a disgusting dichotomy that makes my stomach roil. Slowly, I redirect my attention his way. Beast is here, so is Sin, and a handful of old-timers that I know are even more cruel than the handsome men standing on either side of me.
I'm a lamb in a wolf's den.
“Daddy,” I reply carefully, and my tone is just as mocking. He's used to that. I know what I can get away with.
“Come 'ere,” Cat grunts, waving me over to stand beside him. I can see the mangled tips of the kid's fingers, but he doesn't look scared. Instead, he stares at me with a stark defiance I well recognize. This kid is me in a different body.
I'm fascinated by him at the same time I know he's scheduled for the guillotine. If he's in this cabin, he won't survive the night, not unless the club thinks he has information they need. And even then, he most definitely won't survive the week.
It makes sense all of a sudden. I know why they brought me here. This sight, the smell of blood … they're shackles, shackles to keep me tied to Death by Daybreak. So far in my life, I've managed to avoid being in on any situation that might threaten the club. Even when the mafia attacked the house and killed my sisters, I didn't see anything that could incriminate the club. Nothing.
This right here, I can't walk away from this. I can never run. It's a trap.
My breath starts to come faster, my head swims, and I don't know how much longer I'm going to be able to stay standing. They're going to kill this boy in front of me, aren't they?
“Why am I here?” I ask, because I've never been included in club business, not for anything. This is not my world, not even if I wanted it to be. I don’t, of course, but that's not the point. The point is … now that I'm here, I'll never be able to run.
The kid's hair falls across his brow, this sandy color that reminds me of the beach under a stormy sky. He's looking right at me, through me almost. I feel like glass.
“I need your help with something,” Cat says, sitting in a chair next to me. He reaches out and takes my hand, making me stiffen. It's been years since my dad's touched me for any reason other than to beat my ass. The last time I had a hug from him was … has he ever hugged me? I have one memory of being five years old and riding on his shoulders, laughing and laughing a sunny summer day away. That's about it. Everything else is a blur.
Cat presses a handgun against my palm, and I feel the blood drain from my face.
Oh.
Oh.
No.
Fuck.
Sweat drips from my brow, stinging my lips with salt. I'm not just here to watch, am I?
And I thought things couldn't get any worse. Silly me. Idiot me. This is all my fault. If I hadn't snuck out, I might not be standing here.
Cat makes sure I've got a firm grip on the gun, and then lifts my hand so that the barrel is pressed up tight to the kid's forehead. Doesn't seem to scare him though. He's still glaring at me like I'm Satan. Well, Satan's daughter, but same thing, right?
“Put him down for me, baby girl,” Cat oozes, his voice dark and woven with threats. “Show me that you know how to follow orders.”
I look around to see a good dozen men staring at me. They're waiting, watching, a captive audience to my descent into hell. If I don't kill this boy now, something bad is going to happen to me. I'm not sure if Cat will kill me or torture me, if he'll let his men have their way with me, if …
“He killed your sisters,” Cat continues, “and it was his brother who raped Queenie, put that baby in her.”
My throat gets tight and dry, and the cabin begins to tilt and shift around me. I search the room for a friendly face or at least one with a few less shadows in it, and find Sin staring at me. He looks sorry for what I'm going through, but not enough to step up and say anything. Just like he didn't when Cat had a gun pressed to my forehead. He looks away first, and I turn my attention back to the boy. Rock and hard place. My bones are being crushed to dust between them as I stand there and frantically search for a way out.
There must be a way; there's always a way.
Slowly, I reach out and pull the tape from the boy's mouth.
“Grey,” he gasps, and I realize that he's giving me his name, looking right into my face and holding my gaze. “My name is Grey Wolfe. Stupid name, especially considering my father’s profession, but it is what it is.” He tilts his head to look at me, and that sandy hair of his falls across his sweaty forehead. “How about yours? It’s Gidget, right?”
Fucking hell. He's humanizing himself for me, making me face the reality of what Cat's just told me to do. I don't answer him. Cat wouldn't like it if I did.
“Did you kill my sisters?” I ask, but the boy is already shaking his head. He looks me right in the eye. Panic zings through me. If I shoot him, I will never forget that look. If I don’t … I may not have much time left to do the remembering.
“I didn't have anything to do with that,” Grey tells me, scowling. I imagine he's telling the truth though; he's my age, so he would've been fifteen or so at the time. It's unlikely he would've been involved. “And Kian,” he continues, triggering my memory. For the first time since Cat handed me the gun, my hand starts to shake. Kian, Kian, Kian.
“This is for Kian.”
That's what the asshole said just before he killed Queenie. But who is Kian?
“Kian,” the kid continues, and he looks sad as hell. He looks like I do when I brush my hair with Queenie's antique brush, or when I put on Poppy's favorite beach hat. “My brother, he didn't rape Queenie. He was in love with her.”
“Blow his head off,” Cat says, but he doesn't say it with any sort of heat. It's all ice and wicked cold wind in his words. They chill me to the bone.
“Kian loved Queenie,” Grey repeats, looking at me, pleading with me to accept the truth. His face says he understands he's going to die, but he's desperate for someone to know before he leaves this earth. “They had plane tickets, a house, cash in a briefcase. They were going to leave together; your club killed my brother before they got a chance to go.”
I look at Cat, but I don't have to ask. If he believed Queenie was raped, he would kill the man and attack the organization responsible. The thing is, I don't know if that's what he really believes. For all I know, Queenie was in love with this guy.
The silence stretches hot and sticky between us. I can feel the eyes of the men in that room like heavy weights around my shoulders; my knees may very well buckle. Bile rises in my throat, and I’m just suddenly filled with so much rage and frustration that my vision blurs. Grey must see it, that boy strapped to a chair with a voice made of charcoal and heat. I’d like him if he weren’t stuck in this cabin with the angel of death curling wicked fingers around his throat. I’d like him if he weren’t a part of the mafia that killed my sisters. I’d like him in a nice, normal world that I’ll never inhabit.
“Shoot me then, and get it over with,” Grey growls after a minute, curling his bloodied fingertips under. He looks away from me and closes his eyes, preparing for the worst. He knows better than to plead, and he’s already said what he needed to say. I must look like the least receptive person in the world, sweating and shaking and filled with hatred. In that moment howe
ver … most of it is for Cat.
How dare he? How fucking dare he do this to me?!
My finger is on the trigger, my heart is in my throat, and I feel like the seconds are ticking away to my doom. Either I kill this boy … or I dig my grave right next to his.
What do I do? What do I do? What do I do?
“He's just a boy,” I say, breathless and desperate.
Cat grunts.
“Law says he's grown at eighteen. He ain't no kid.” He stands up from his chair and crosses his arms over his chest. That's how I know I'm running out of time. My eyes flick up to find Crown’s, and there’s a sadness and an acceptance there that I don’t find on any other face. Doesn’t change things. He’s not going to help me. Beast with his cool indifference isn’t going to help me. Sin won’t even look at me. And Grainger? He’s the worst one of them all. He’s scowling like he’s fucking put out by having to be here.
“Don't feel bad,” Grey says after a moment, his eyes like stars in his sweaty, bloody face. He turns back to look at me. “My dad's the same way.” Grey swallows and lifts his chin in defiance. “You can kill me, and feel no regrets. It's okay.” He looks at me like I'm the one who needs the help. “Hell, I doubt my dad'll even leave the casino when he finds out I'm missing.”
My finger tenses on the trigger, but I don't think I can do it. I think … that even if it means I'll die, I can't shoot Grey in the face.
Grey Wolfe.
That last name, that association … he's the son of the Don of the Grey Wolfe Mafia.
By all rights, I should want him dead. But he wasn't there that day; he didn't kill my sisters. This isn't justice.
“Casino?” Cat asks, exchanging a look with René. And then the miraculous happens. He reaches down and pushes the gun away from Grey’s face. “What casino?”
“Triangle Lake Resort,” Grey replies, nostrils flaring. “He has an entirely new operation running out of there. It's why he wants your club gone.” Grey looks at me with a bit of relief in his face, but not because he thinks he's saved his ass.
He hasn't.
No, the club is a double-edged sword. Either Grey dies for not talking … or he dies because he's a rat. The club hates rats. Either way, he's screwed. But I think he believes he's saved me.
I know Cat far too well to believe that.
My father grunts and gives me a look. When our eyes meet, I realize I still have a loaded handgun clutched in my fingers. I could point it at him and shoot. I'd die afterward, but … I'm going to die anyway. Because Cat will bring me back here, and he'll ask me to do this again. And next time, there won't be a magic out.
“Looks like this is your lucky day, Gidge,” he says, reaching out to curl his fingers around my upper arm. I can't look away from him, from the dark shadows in his eyes that I don't remember being there before Queenie and Posey died. “But luck don't last forever. Get your ass home for the night.”
Cat grabs the pistol back from me and then takes a seat, leaning in and waiting for Grey to continue his story.
I back up slowly, trying to avoid attention, and end up bumping into Crown's chest.
He steers me around and out the door.
I have never been so fucking happy to smell the cool, fall air, like pumpkins and frost and maple syrup. I end up rooted to the spot, watching the trees billow in the breeze. Their leaves aren't quite the brilliant orange-red of autumn, not yet.
“I'll take you home,” Crown says, and I turn back to look at him. He's a beautiful man, but I don't feel anything when I stare into his green eyes. Lie. Lie, lie, lie. I try to focus on his mouth instead, but that doesn’t help. It’s too full to think about anything other than kissing him. Hot lips and tongue tentatively tasting mine, testing, searching, claiming. Memories flood my head, and I shake them away.
“I brought her here; I'll take her home,” Grainger interjects, stepping outside the cabin and making sure the door is locked behind him. He turns to Crown and I feel this shiver of tension between the two of them.
The air no longer tastes like crisp fall and apples. Instead, it reeks of violence.
“I've got it under control,” Crown says, voice smooth and cool but threaded through with just a dollop of violence. He runs his right hand down his arm, over the tattooed badge that graces his bicep. Doesn’t take a genius to figure out the meaning behind that one: ex-cop, current criminal.
“I said I'll take her home,” Grainger repeats, and the two men stare each other down with wicked intent. I can hardly even believe what I'm seeing.
Are they … fighting over me?
“I'm not looking to be anybody's old lady,” I choke out. Remember what I said? A fate worse than death. Being strapped to the club for the rest of my life is an unimaginable horror. A sickness crashes over me when I realize that, no matter what these idiots are thinking, I’m already trapped.
Forever caged.
A bird with broken wings.
I clamp a hand over my mouth.
“Old lady?” Grainger scoffs, choking on his own, bitter laugh. He rakes tattooed fingers through his dark hair. “Are you kidding me? You're seventeen fucking years old. Who the hell said they wanted you as their old lady?”
“If my age is such an issue, why'd you fuck me the other night?” I ask, and I feel Crown stiffen beside me. The look he throws Grainger is too nuanced for me to pick apart. I'm tired, and I just want to go to sleep for the next ten years. But that violence in the air … it begins to boil.
“If Cat finds out,” Crown begins, but Cade Grainger is already stalking off into the darkness, throwing me an awful, awful look over his shoulder, one that's half-poison and half-lust. Our eyes meet, and it’s like the slash of a knife. I wonder if I’m bleeding from that glance?
“Cat isn't going to find out unless you tell him,” Grainger adds, pausing, and prowling back a few feet to get in Crown's face. “And if you do, I've got other stories I could tell.”
“Are you threatening me?” Crown whispers, but I step between them before they can start fighting. There's a tightness in their shoulders, the taste of pain in the air. Inside that cabin, there’s a kid who’s about to be tortured. Even if he talks, they won’t let him off easy. I’m going to fucking puke.
“You're not sinless, Crown,” Grainger snaps, getting out another cigarette and lighting up. He looks at me like this is all my fault. “And neither are you.”
“Go to hell and eat a dick,” I tell him, just before he turns and storms off into the darkness.
I fucking hate that man.
“That'll never work, you know,” Crown says, drawing my attention back to him. His green eyes are soft, but patronizing. Makes me want to punch him. When he smiles, it isn’t nice. No, it’s the sort of condescending smile you gift a helpless person while you watch them flounder. “You and Grainger. He's just not that sort of man.”
My turn to snort a laugh.
“Are you kidding me?” I ask, looking him over in his tight white t-shirt, brown hair catching the light from Grainger's bike as he turns his headlights on. “You think I'm interested in that asshole?” I shake my head and turn away, looking up toward the distant sky, bathed in orange and red. It's still only early afternoon, and I have a few classes left I could attend.
Only … I don't feel like going back.
No, if Dad has decided to take things this far, I need to get out. And quick. I need to run.
But if I'm going to run, I'm taking that kid with me.
“It was just a fuck, Crown, get over yourself.” I start off toward the row of bikes, but he reaches out and grabs my arm. I can't figure out for the life of me what he's doing, but he pulls me back and turns me around to face him. Leaning over, Crown overwhelms me with his scent, like violets and suede, and I find it suddenly hard to swallow past a tight throat.
“Maybe it was just a fuck, but he's still no good,” Crown continues, sliding his fingers down my upper arms. It feels so good that I get chills, especially when his mouth gets
up close and personal with my own.
There's a split-second there where I feel like he might kiss me.
He doesn't.
No, even when Crown is bad he's good. He's a rule follower if I've ever seen one. I scowl as I turn away from him. Why am I even thinking about kissing this asshole anyway? Why did I ever think to kiss this asshole in the first place? That was what started it all, that night I'll never be able to forget, no matter how far I run, no matter how fast I go …
“Take me to the vet,” I repeat, wondering if Crown will. He might. If Cat hasn't explicitly told him not to. He stares at me for a long time, the green of his eyes as rich as the needles on the evergreen trees around us. They feel like they're leaning over us, like they're closing in on me.
“Okay,” he says finally, pulling away and shaking himself like he's throwing off a cloak of useless emotion. Whatever Crown might feel for me, it's just as shallow as what happened between Grainger and me the other night. It's nothing deep; it's not meaningful.
And yet … I'm still fucking ruined.
One and a Half Years Ago …
The soft, blue petals of sadness bloom into the fiery red of anger with just a few tears. It's astonishing how quickly it happens, and all without the soul even noticing. It's like, one day you wake up and you don't just want to lie there anymore. One day, you open your eyes and you're full of energy with no outlet, energy that makes you want to hurt something. Or someone.
Mostly, it makes you want to hurt yourself.
I dress in thigh-highs and a plaid skirt, a top that's just barely a bra, and enough makeup to join a circus. And then I go out looking for trouble.
“Where do you think you're going looking like a fucking whore?” Gaz asks, standing outside the front door, smoking a cigarette. He looks me up and down like he doesn't know who I am anymore. The ironic part of all that is that Gaz has never known me. He never knew Queenie or Posey. He was always treated differently for having a penis. I've hated him for it since I turned ten and he stopped wanting to wrestle or roughhouse with me.
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