The Mustang was one hell of a beautiful car. I couldn’t believe Daemon had actually finished the damn thing. I ran my hand slowly along the black paint job with its two white racing stripes and smiled. I remembered the shit our old man had given Daemon for hauling such a piece of crap out of the Club’s salvage yard. One wheel was missing, the underbelly looked like a giant pile of rust, and the engine was missing eighty percent of it.
This car, the one in his garage, was amazing.
The Mustang was something I’d asked about days ago. But between caring for Olivia, taking her to her ex-boyfriend’s funeral, and Club business Daemon had needed to take care of, this was the first time we’d been able to spend just hanging out.
“You did good, brother,” I said, turning to Daemon and Jaden, also a club member and Daemon’s long-time best friend. They had their asses resting up against Daemon’s work shelf that ran along the back edge of the garage. Tools were hung everywhere in an organized order. Daemon hadn’t touched a damn thing or moved anything from where our dad had insisted it be placed.
He raised his chin to me in acknowledgement before he pushed off the counter and walked toward me.
“There’s something I need to tell you.” He ran a hand down his face until he smoothed out his goatee.
I spun around, resting my ass against the hood of his car, and crossed my arms. Jaden stayed silent against the back wall, drinking his beer, his eyes narrowed on us, apparently knowing the conversation that was about to happen.
“Why do I have a feeling I’m not going to like what you have to say?”
Daemon sighed and his hands fell to his hips. “It’s about Faith.”
Faith. For the last several days, I had tried to pretend I hadn’t seen her working at a whorehouse. I hadn’t yet reconciled whether or not I cared, which said more than it didn’t. I vacillated between wanting to tear her away and kidnapping her to New Orleans to start a new life away from all this bull shit versus thinking she had gotten what she deserved for turning her back on me.
Which meant, as I stood there in front of Daemon watching him nervously take me in, I wasn’t going to like whatever he had to say.
My nose twitched. “Okay.” I blinked, preparing myself for the worst. “And?”
Daemon looked over his shoulder and back at Jaden, who shrugged and gave him a what-fucking-ever look, before Daemon again ran his hand through his hair.
“Look, man,” he started and then stopped.
His ability to draw shit out started eating a whole in my gut. “Just tell me, D.”
He sighed again. “They own her. Black Death fuckin’ bought her.”
The words scrambled in my head until they didn’t make sense. Bought her? What the fuck did that mean? I was about to ask, but Daemon kept talking. Rambling like a fucking teenage girl.
“Fuck. I knew she went to work at Penny’s about a year after you left, but I thought she did it because she needed the money for her mom or some shit. I never knew she was sold to them.”
“Sold?” I choked out. What. The. Fuck. My eyes widened. My body chilled as the blood drained from my face.
Daemon took a step away from me. Smart man. It felt like the garage spun in circles around me. My hands curled into fists until I felt pain burn in my knuckles. What in the hell did that mean?
“Yeah.” Daemon exhaled a deep breath. “Her mom sold her to them in exchange for their protection after her dad was killed. Apparently Mills made the offer the night…” He stopped. Everything flashed in my head. “The night everything happened with dad… and Liv.”
“Fuck.” Had I gotten it wrong? I scrubbed my face with my hands, hoping to wash away the insanity that pulsed in my veins. It didn’t work. With my eyes closed, red filled my vision until I felt uncontrollable. I spun around and punched the hood on Daemon’s car. “Fuck!”
Pain shot up my arm at the same time Daemon cursed my name.
“You knew?” I shouted at him, facing him, ready to charge.
Jaden stepped forward. “We just found out.”
“When?” I growled. I might have been foaming at the fucking mouth I was so pissed. “When?” I repeated, feral eyes glancing between the two men who were watching me like I needed a straitjacket. “What the hell?”
“The other night at the meet, Ryker.” Daemon took a step toward me. Swear to God, I snarled at him when he moved closer. What the hell was happening to me? He raised his hands, palms out, like he was cautiously approaching a rabid animal. I fucking felt like one as my adrenaline pulsed through my body. My skin itched, my muscles shook, and my teeth ground together painfully hard until my jaw hurt.
I needed a damn drink. Or a case.
I pushed off his car and stomped out of the garage, headed toward his house—not mine—I hadn’t yet let myself think of it that way, even though it was the home we’d grown up in. Gravel crunched beneath the footsteps following me until I was almost at the front door. I grabbed the handle with one hand and then let go. When I turned around, Daemon and Jaden both eyed me warily.
Pussies. What the fuck was I going to do? Go off on a one-man killing spree, shooting all the Black Death Members in town? What the fuck good would that do?
The vision of Faith with her hands clenching onto Mills’ leather cut, his lips and hands all over her, pulsed in my head. She had cheated on me. Hadn’t she? She had run to them when she doubted my ability to care for her. Why else would that dick have been there that night?
Unless Daemon was right. If what he said was true, then I had fucked up. I had completely fucked up the best thing that had ever happened to me.
Shit.
“How could you not fucking tell me that they own her?” I shouted before throwing the door open and letting it slam shut behind me.
Daemon followed right behind me, his entrance into the house coupled with another slam of the door. “I just did!” He threw his arms in the air.
I shouted something back at him, but I was way too messed up to think clearly. My rage fought to rush him, tackle him directly into the wall behind him like we did when we were young, and pummel the ever loving shit out of him.
But then a small little voice spoke and my breath caught.
“Mama, it too youd!”
My eyes snapped to Daemon at the same time he frowned. Who in the hell would bring a kid here? He looked like he was holding his breath at the same time he looked at Jaden.
What the hell was I missing?
And then I remembered Brayden. The sensitive little boy who used to cover his ears and rock in a corner when noises scared him. And even though nothing that happened in the last ten minutes made any damn sense in my head, I didn’t want another kid scared.
With slow feet, I turned on my heels and saw her. Shit. I blinked rapidly several times at the little girl who was cowering behind Jules’ legs as if it was her safe haven. One of Jules’ hands was wrapped behind her, gently and calmly running her hand through the little girl’s blonde hair. She peeked her eyes out around Jules’ legs and bit her bottom lip. Then she ducked back into her hiding spot.
I crouched down in front of Jules after I saw her shakily smile at me, silently giving me permission to approach the little girl I assumed was her daughter. She looked like her anyway. When did Jules have a kid?
“Hey there,” I said slowly. I plastered on a friendly smile, willing the rushing blood in my body to calm down. It worked minutely. “Who are you?” The little girl peeked out and disappeared again.
“To-fee. I two.” I laughed softly at the muffled reply.
Jules corrected her, still smiling at me yet nervously biting her lip just like the little girl when she looked back at Jaden and Daemon behind me. “Sophie.”
I nodded once and picked up a block. “I’m Ryker. Do you want to play blocks with me?” I eyed the multi-colored tower and focused. This would help calm me down. Kids did that for some reason. Get down and play at their level and it felt like all the hard shit in life evaporated. I needed it now if I was ever going to figure out what to do with Faith.
I shook her out of my head and focused on the blocks. The tower. The little girl, Sophie, who was still hiding from me. I planted my ass on the floor and grabbed the zipped bag of blocks nearby. Screw it. I’d build a tower by myself and pretend shit around me wasn’t falling apart like a poorly built Lego house.
It took seconds for Sophie to peek her little blue eyes out from around Jules’ leg again. She smiled slowly and, almost as nervous as a mouse, approached the tower I was starting to build. Behind me I could hear harsh breathing coming from Jaden. I hoped like he hell he would calm the hell down or get out. Based on the nervous glint in Sophie’s eyes, I didn’t think she was used to a bunch of large men screaming around her.
Jules sighed heavily right as Sophie and I began working on the tower. The shocked silence that had filled the room almost as soon as Sophie shouted earlier disappeared.
“You knew about this?” Jaden clipped at Daemon behind me. It sounded more like a growl, and Sophie flinched.
“Here,” I whispered to her, bringing her back to focus. I handed her a blue, square block. “Where does this go?”
I tried like hell to ignore the tension between the men behind me, but I couldn’t. Especially after Jaden let the term bastard fly out of his mouth. It reminded me too close to the day Meg’s parents had said the same thing to her when Byron died. They had never wanted their sweet and innocent daughter tied to a blue collar man working on an oil rig.
My eyes snapped to Jules when I saw her hands curl into fists in front of me. “Scratch’s kid,” she snapped. I glanced back at Daemon. He didn’t look surprised as his eyes darted from Olivia, where she’d been lying on the couch, to Sophie. “And don’t you ever call my kid a bastard.”
My mouth dropped open while I tried to hide my shock. Scratch, Jaden’s brother, had died just over two years ago in a motorcycle accident. Jules and Scratch had dated forever, but due to shit going on with her dad, who was the mayor of Jasper Bay, and how differently she’d been raised than the rest of us, Jaden had never trusted her. From what I’d heard from Daemon, Scratch died the night after he and Jules had some epic fight, which sealed Jaden’s hatred of Jules forever. All I knew was that within weeks of Scratch’s funeral, Jules had taken off to head to college in Arizona. Her returning to Jasper Bay when Olivia had been shot was a shock to everyone.
A quick glance at Sophie told me she was definitely Scratch’s kid.
Based on the growl that escaped Jaden’s mouth, he wasn’t happy about this news.
Jules’ strength impressed the hell out of me, and I couldn’t help but lean back and watch Sophie build the tower while I kept an eye on everyone in the room. Jaden sounded about ready to boil over, but there was no way in hell I was going to let him bitch out Jules in front of her daughter. I had seen enough of it with Meg’s parents. That shit stayed with Brayden for days after her parents showed up and demanded she move back in with them. Jules was quieter than Meg, but just as brave as she faced Jaden, defending her daughter to him. She wiped her wet eyes and looked directly into Jaden’s angry ones. “She’s Scratch’s little girl… I told him that night.”
That night… I assumed she was talking about the night he died. All I had heard was that he had laid down his bike on a stretch of highway filled with tight curves.
“You’re fuckin’ kidding me!” Jaden yelled at her. Sophie flinched again, and I saw her chin do that damn quiver thing Brayden’s did when he was about to cry. I had heard enough.
“Little ears! Shit Jaden, watch it.” From next to me, I heard Olivia snort. The irony of my swearing while yelling at Jaden wasn’t lost on me, but fuck it. Then I leaned back toward Sophie, whispering in her ear, “You keep goin’, sweetie. You’re doing great.”
Her eyes widened at me, and for the first time, her smile wasn’t scared. Something hit my chest as I looked at her. It reminded me of Faith when we were kids─ the innocence and the excitement that she carried in her light blue eyes. It reminded me of Brayden and Meg and my promise to never leave them.
And everything rushed my chest at the same time I heard Jaden let out another curse in the distance right before the front door slammed closed.
I had to get out of that room with Sophie and the girls and the reminder that if maybe, just maybe, I hadn’t fucked everything up five years ago, that little girl staring at me could have been mine and Faith’s. That we would’ve gotten married like we’d planned, started our family, gotten the fuck out of Jasper Bay, and been together like we’d always talked about.
How was I supposed to make right on any of it when there was no doubt in my head, from the way Faith’s eyes had turned cold as ice when she saw me, that she hated me? Absolutely fuckin’ hated me. And what good would it do to ask her forgiveness—especially now that I had priorities back in New Orleans? Meg and Brayden. I had promises to make good on in a place that was a world away from Jasper Bay.
I was fucked. Either way, I had thrown away every damn good thing in my life, and from what Daemon had told me, it could have all been some huge fuckin’ misunderstanding that I hadn’t been man enough to deal with at the time.
The doubt, the rage, the reality that I abandoned Faith when she needed me the most, and the fact that it was my fault—my fault—that she was now where she was, doing what she was doing… it exploded in my chest.
I had to get out of the room and away from the innocence of a child who had just started trusting me. I needed to get away from the murmurs of apologies to Jules and away from the damn anger boiling inside me that I would take out on the wrong damn person if any of them so much as looked at me.
I left the room, grabbed a beer from the fridge, and didn’t give a shit that I heard every condiment and beer bottle rattle inside the fridge as I slammed the door shut. I was already outside, gasping for breath. My hands curled tightly into fists; I was surprised the glass in my hand didn’t shatter.
I poured the cool beer down my throat, not tasting it. I didn’t taste a damn thing. I didn’t feel a damn thing. Instead, I stared out at the backyard, feeling nothing and yet full of memories that I couldn’t escape.
Faith, her damn long black hair had always been done into braids that fell down her back. When I was twelve, I yanked on them and ran away from her as she screamed at me, trying to throw worms at my head. When I was fifteen and she was just starting to grow the first hint of tits, my showers started lasting twenty minutes, even though I was too young to understand what she did to me. When I was seventeen, the showers lasted twice as long. By then I was fully aware of the lust that hit my chest when she’d turn those light blue eyes on me.
And when she turned sixteen? Two years younger than me, but I felt like she was finally able to be with me. And I had taken it. That first time I had felt her hands on my arms and her warm skin brushed against mine in a way that didn’t feel platonic? The first time it didn’t feel like she was looking at me like I was her big brother? I was done for. I had smashed my lips to hers in a way that probably hurt her and all she did was take it. She had threaded her fingers through my hair and gave back to me just as badly as I gave to her. That was the night we became inseparable. That was the night I promised I would always take care of her.
Damn it. Faith had been so strong. She had never acted like it bothered her that her mom spent more time drugged out on prescription pills than she did being a mom. Faith had practically lived at our house or Olivia’s, taking solace from the shit that was her life. But she never complained.
“Fuck!” I heaved my beer bottle across the yard. I felt caged in the open air. My skin itched to haul ass back as quickly as I could to the rig, where life was so fucking simple that my head could shut down and I didn’t have to think about the possibility that I had broken my promise to Faith.
I had left her. I’d been the one to betray her. Maybe it hadn’t been the other way around, the way I’d always thought it was. Maybe my head had been too fucked up the night I took off to see anything clearly.
Shit.
My fingers curled around the edge of the deck right as I heard the screen door bang shut behind me. I wanted to break the damn wood in my hands and then beat myself over the head with it.
From my peripheral, I saw Daemon walk closer to me, two beer bottles in one of his hands and an unlit cigarette in the other.
“That was fucking interesting,” he said, handing me the beer and taking a few steps until he was leaning against the railing. I heard the distinct sound of a lighter on paper and then the buzz as the paper burned when Daemon inhaled.
I popped the top off the beer, flicked the cap into the grass, and swallowed half the beer in one gulp.
I assumed he was talking about Jaden and Jules, but I couldn’t stop thinking about Faith. It was one thing to think she’d become an escort because she wanted to. Or hell, even if it was because she needed the money.
But to know she hadn’t been given a choice? That her druggie, fucked up, loser of a mom had sold her daughter to the hands of men who were ten times more evil than the club my dad had started and served? Muscles tightened all over my body and I heard my blood pulse in my ears.
“I don’t know what to do for her.” I didn’t look at Daemon. He knew who the fuck I was talking about and it wasn’t Jules or Sophie or even Olivia. Damn it. Had all the men I’d known grown up to be the assholes we’d always claimed we’d never become?
Smoke blew through the air as Daemon smoked his cigarette.
“Free her.” Two words. Easy as fuckin’ pie. I squeezed my eyes closed while he kept talking. “We get this shit done the way Black Death wants and they let her go.”
I turned my head and glared at him. Since Olivia had gotten out of the hospital, Daemon and Bull, Liv’s dad and President of the Nordic Lords, had met with Black Death. Black Death wanted to work together to prevent the Sporelli’s, a mob family from Chicago, from bringing drugs into Jasper Bay through the ports. In exchange for the Nordic Lords help, Black Death had promised to let Faith go.
“And what happens to Faith if it gets fucked up?” And when the Nordic Lords had their meeting with Black Death to overrun Sporelli, my ass would be back on the rig, away from everything going down here. I wouldn’t hear if they got Faith back until it was all over.
“We don’t fuck up.”
I snorted. Daemon. Ever the damn cocky bastard he always was. All sorts of shit could get fucked up with that. All sorts of shit was fucked up no matter which way I turned. I couldn’t leave Meg and Brayden to take care of Faith. Hell, I didn’t know if Faith even gave a shit if I did anything to step in and help her. Did I want to put my ass back on the line like that with her?
Daemon pressed his lips together and shrugged. “It’s not that fuckin’ hard, Ryker. Get your ass back here, join the club, and do what needs to be done.” He took a long pull from his beer while I gritted my teeth.
“It’s not that simple, man.” I shook my head. This was why I avoided him when he called most of the time. Five years hadn’t done anything to stop him from trying to get me home.
But fuck if he didn’t have a point this time. My head was so screwed up I had no idea what was right or wrong anymore or where my priorities were. My anger built until I kicked the railing on his deck so hard I heard wood crack.
Daemon’s sarcastic laugh rang in my ears. “You break my deck and you’re fucking fixin’ it.”
I laughed but it sounded weak. My little brother was a dickhead.
“She has to hate me.”
He inhaled from his cigarette and threw the butt toward a dirt patch just off the deck. “Probably does,” he agreed. “Does it really change the fact she shouldn’t be doing that shit in the first place?”
Asswipe.
“Fuck,” I said and raked my hands through my hair. “I can’t… I don’t… shit, I can’t think about this. Everything’s such a damn huge mess right now.” Meg. The rig. Jasper Bay. Home. Faith. Olivia. All the shit with the club that wasn’t my business, but I didn’t know if I could walk away from it all again. This damn town had a pull on me that I had never been able to completely shake, even when I tried to ignore it.
Daemon rested his ass against the deck and took a long pull from his beer. “Yep. Welcome to our life. It’s always been this way, but you’re the only one who can fix it.”
My head snapped to him and I glared at him. The earlier rage began a slow simmer. Why was all this shit my problem to deal with? The fight I’d been wanting with Daemon for hiding this from me in the first place began boiling in my veins again. I watched him clock my stance. He set his bottle on the edge of the railing and widened his legs, his fighter instinct kicking into play.
“How could you let her do this?” It was an irrational blame, and I knew it. She had been my responsibility to take care of, not Daemon’s. But it was someone’s fucking fault and I wasn’t ready to point my damn finger at myself yet. Even though I knew it was, and Daemon knew it, too.
He laughed once, loudly. “Cut the shit, man. We all had to do shit to survive after that night. You think she wanted this? You have no idea the hell she went through, and if you wanted her taken care of, you should have been man enough to step up. Instead, you ran off, so ashamed of shit when it was a fucking accident in the first place, and left the rest of us to clean up the damn mess.”
My hands balled into fists. His did, too. And I waited, both of us breathing heavily. Fuck Daemon. He had no fucking clue what it was like to know that, accident or not, I was the one responsible for killing my dad. But not only that… the responsibility of knowing had I showed up minutes, maybe seconds, earlier I could have saved Olivia and Cherry. My nostrils flared and my jaw clenched, ready to take the first swing and brawl all my rage out on my family’s deck. But I couldn’t. Something stopped me. I looked away from Daemon, grabbed my beer bottle, and flung it out into the yard. It smashed into the grass and shattered into pieces right next to the one I’d thrown earlier.
I was panting. An angry fucked up mess full of regret and shoulda-coulda-woulda’s. From behind me, Daemon laughed.
“You’re cleanin’ that shit up, you know.”
I laughed. And damn it, it felt good to do it, too. For a split second I was able to let all of it go. I let my rage evaporate into the air as I stared at the evergreen forest, knowing that Daemon had my back. Literally. He was younger and he was an asshole, but he would always be there for me. It helped me take a deep breath and, for a moment, chill the hell out and enjoy hanging out in the sun while standing on the deck and having a beer with my brother.
It only lasted a moment though before Faith’s cold eyes flashed in my memory. I sighed. “I don’t know if she’d want my help.” Turning around, I rested my ass against the deck railing to see Daemon turn toward the house and hit the door frame.
A wicked smile threatened at the corner of Daemon’s lips, like he had me caught in a trap. “This is Faith.”
Three simple words. They slammed into my chest almost knocking me off the deck. What the fuck was I thinking? Damn it. Meg would understand. Hell, Meg was always the one telling me I had to move on and how she hated that she felt like I got trapped by Byron’s forced promise. It was just one more trip to help the club get Faith out from underneath Black Death. Then she could do whatever she wanted.
I sighed and looked out to the forest of evergreens that surrounded the property. Free Faith. Head back to New Orleans. Take care of Meg. I could keep all my promises.
What a fantasy. I blinked and reality returned. “Faith hates me.”
Daemon laughed off to my side. I wanted to punch him in the mouth for finding anything funny about this. He didn’t know. “Probably, but there’s only one way to find out.”
My eyes snapped to him and I arched a brow, waiting.
He grinned and pushed off the railing, closing the gap between us. “Make an appointment, and go talk to her.”
Was he fucking mad? Or stupid? Make an appointment to see my ex-fiancée, the whore? Those two words rattled in my brain until I knew I only had one choice.
I had to free Faith.
“Make an appointment.” It came out as a whisper as it passed my lips. I shook my head, still disbelieving how much everything could change so quickly. And I knew as soon as that happened I would crave more. I would need revenge and justice for the men who had taken Faith in the first place. “You need help for that Sporelli bullshit in a few weeks?”
“Yup. You want in?”
I licked my lips and pressed them together in between my teeth. Simply asking the question changed everything. The answer was already obvious. “Yeah, brother. I’ll be here.”
I followed Daemon into the house. As I passed him, he slapped his hand on my shoulder, shaking me. “Welcome home, man.”
I snorted and went to the fridge for another beer. “One big happy fuckin’ family.”