I was a fucking pervert. I stood in the hotel room that I had requested for Faith to give us space and time to talk, to figure out what the hell went wrong. Except all I wanted to do as soon as her finger singed my skin was throw her on the huge ass bed and taste every inch of her creamy, white skin.
I had to get myself, my adrenaline, and my damn hard dick under control before I could talk to her.
Not even then would I be able to touch her the way I wanted to—not when I was too fucking terrified she would think the only reason I was touching her was because I paid for her. That wasn’t it at all. It was simply the only way I knew to get her alone and out from underneath the eyes of Black Death.
Her owners. Fury boiled inside of me at the damn thought.
“Ryker.”
I set down my beer and turned around, facing Faith. Her shoulders were pulled back as she watched me. She looked confident. She looked sexy as fuck. The robe fell past her fingertips and puddled on the floor around her feet, but it couldn’t erase my memory of her in lace. Black fucking lace. God, she was beautiful.
“Why am I here?”
“I wanted to talk to you…” I stopped, ran a hand through my hair, and took a deep breath. “I wanted to explain why I left.”
She scoffed. The blood rushed from her cheeks and her hands gripped the knot on the belt around her waist. “A little late, don’t you think?”
It was. It was way too fucking late and I wasn’t looking for absolution. Not from Faith. If what I’d figured out was true, I didn’t deserve it.
It didn’t stop me from walking toward her, though. For five years I’d lived with the anger that she had cheated on me the first chance she got, if not before. I had left thinking she had never loved me. But now, as I saw the pain and fear and nerves dance across her eyes, I knew without certainty that I had to be the biggest prick in the entire fucking world.
This was Faith.
The girl who’d loved me for as long as I could remember.
There was no way she could have done what I saw that night.
Not willingly, anyway.
“I think I fucked up,” I admitted quietly when I stopped a few short feet from her. I could take one large step, reach out, and have her in my arms all over again. I’d be able to feel her fingertips dragging lightly down my skin, play with my hair, and have her lips on my skin.
Faith leaned back, rested her ass against a countertop, and crossed her arms over her chest.
“I’m pretty certain you fucked up.”
I winced, and then I nodded.
I might have, but she also had no idea how fucked up my head was that night.
“I saw you that night,” I gritted out. Her eyebrows pulled together.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
Her voice was quiet, mousy. I believed her instantly.
I needed another drink before I relived it with her, too. “Want some wine?” I asked and moved to the counter where the bottle was now half empty. I didn’t wait for her to answer as I poured her a glass. She took it slowly from my hands, careful to avoid our fingers touching.
When I could no longer stand the silence or the memories beating down on me, I pulled my eyes directly to Faith. And then I had to blink because she was so damn beautiful with her light blue eyes and black hair and fuck… that black lace shit I could still see, even though it wasn’t visible through the robe.
“When I left you that night, I went to my dad to patch in.”
Faith gasped. I said the words as evenly and calmly as I would have spoken to her five years ago. This time, I watched her eyes widen in surprise.
My voice lowered. “I would have done anything for you, you know. I would have patched into the fucking club that I wanted nothing to do with just to make you happy.” Memories. My cold truck. Her shivering hands. Her tears. They assaulted my vision until I felt the need to sit down.
I turned my back to Faith and moved to the small couch in the living area of the hotel room. It wasn’t comfortable, but my legs were starting to shake and I had to sit. Better an uncomfortable couch than collapsing to the floor like a pussy.
I rolled the beer bottle between my palms and watched her. She stared out the window with emotionless eyes. I wanted to ask if she was remembering that night like I was, but she gave away nothing with her vacant expression.
“I went to my dad’s house and saw… I saw everything, Faith. Fuck, I can still see it. I can still smell the blood when I’m on the oil rig twenty miles off the coast. I can see Cherry’s blood, and I can see Olivia passed out in the chair. I can still hear the bullets going off and I can definitely see the way I fucked it all up by letting that bastard get out of the house before I got my shit together and started moving again.”
My head dropped. I set the beer down before I scrubbed my fingers through my hair and across the back of my neck. It was pointless. I had done that move a million times over the years, and no matter how hard I scrubbed, I couldn’t erase what I had seen or what I had done.
I heard Faith’s soft footsteps padding toward me on the carpet, but I didn’t look up at her. Instead, my elbows went to my knees and I held my head in my hands while I memorized the strands in the carpet. Grey carpet speckled with dots of red.
Red like blood.
I blinked and looked up.
Faith was mere feet from me again, looking uncertain and unwary. No longer looking pissed and dejected, though, so that was good. Better.
I almost smiled.
And then I kept remembering.
“Daemon showed up, the men kicked me out, and do you know what I did?”
I licked the front of my teeth, trying to hold in the anger that always hit me at that point in the memory.
“No.” Faith cleared her throat and shook her head. “But I’m sorry you saw all that.”
I blinked away the look of compassion on her face.
“I saw you,” I growled. Faith flinched, and I pulled in a shaky breath. I had to calm the hell down again. But like always, I could feel my anger, the betrayal of seeing another man’s hands on her, build deep in my blood. “With Cain. His hands all over you.”
She frowned and then stopped breathing on a sharp inhale.
I rolled my tongue in my mouth. I could see it like it was yesterday. I could see it like it happened a minute ago.
“You were all over that asshole from Black Death.”
We stared at each other for what felt like hours. Finally, she exhaled and collapsed into a chair. “That wasn’t—” She looked dazed as she stopped talking and shook her head.
I felt like a gigantic ass. I always should have known.
“I know. I know that now, Faith. But that night… it was all so fucking scary and ugly and I couldn’t think. I didn’t know what the fuck Black Death was doing at your house that night, but at the same time, I thought…”
She shook her head. “You have to be kidding me.” She shook her head again, and the dazed look in her eyes cleared. Before I knew it, they flashed anger. She jumped out of her seat. “Are you fucking kidding me, Ryker?”
I fell against the back of the couch.
“Faith.”
“No,” she snapped and pointed a finger at me. “You don’t get to explain this shit. Holy shit!” She spun on her heels, running her hands through her black hair. I could hear her breathing heavily right before she spun around again and faced me. “You are an asshole.”
My eyes widened. “An asshole? I had just killed my dad and came back to you, needing you, and you were all over the club’s enemy.”
“I wasn’t all over him!”
“I know that now!”
“You should have known it then!”
I squeezed my eyes shut and balled my hands into fists. She was right; I should have.
“Jesus, Faith. I had just killed my dad. I wasn’t exactly thinking clearly.”
She blinked once and then twice. I heard her sniff before she pulled her eyes back to the window. “You are such an asshole. You have no idea what happened to me that night.”
“I know.” I cleared my throat, feeling the dryness and the lump in it. “I know that now.”
Silence filled the room, and for the first time in years, Faith was so close to me. All I wanted to do was wrap my arms around her and feel her. I wanted to go back to the way it used to be so she could make me forget. Forget everything that had happened that night.
“Faith,” I called quietly, standing up and closing the space between us. “You have to cut me some slack that maybe I wasn’t thinking straight that night.”
She scoffed and raised a hand to stop me. She bit her bottom lip and her chin shook slightly. “I don’t have to do shit. Not now.” She shook her head. Then she opened her mouth before snapping it shut again. “God, that night…”
“Tell me.”
She shook her head. “You’re a dick.”
“I know,” I said, taking a small step forward. I couldn’t stop myself. I wanted to be with her, to make all this shit right again. That probably made me an asshole because regardless of what happened between Faith and me, I’d still leave again.
“Cain was there the night you dropped me off. He was talking to my mom about making a deal.”
I nodded because now I knew that. I knew what the deal was. Except hearing it from Daemon felt completely different than hearing it fall from Faith’s lips. I wanted to rip the man’s head off with my bare hands as Faith stood in the center of the room, in a robe three sizes too large for her, looking timid, terrified, and fucking broken.
Her eyes cut to mine, slicing through the already broken areas in my heart. They were as cold as ice when she narrowed them directly at me. “Do you know what they did, Ryker?”
“I know they own you,” I said quietly. Bile rose in my throat as the words left my lips.
Faith scoffed. It was cold and emotionless and so unlike the Faith I knew. I hated it. I hated hearing her sound like that. She shook her head and looked away.
“You have no idea what that means.” Her eyes glazed over.
“Then tell me,” I said, walking toward her. I hoped like hell she wouldn’t back away. I had done this to her. Another innocent victim with their pain on my conscience. Fuck. Would I ever stop screwing over everyone I cared for? My brain told me to stop and back the fuck away from her.
My feet kept moving, unable to stop until I stood directly in front of her. “Tell me what they did to you so I know who to kill first.”
She frowned when she looked at me. “Kill?” I watched her swallow slowly.
I nodded equally as slow. It’d be the first kill I did willingly. I’d probably smile and feel good doing it, too. “Daemon made a deal with Black Death, Faith. In a few weeks they’re working together and in exchange Black Death is setting you free.”
“What?” Faith’s jaw dropped and her eyebrows shot up her forehead in shock. I couldn’t stop myself. My hand went to her shoulder and I squeezed it firmly. I could barely feel her through the thick white robe. She froze under my hand.
She shook her head. “That’s never going to happen. Daemon and the rest of the club are idiots if they think Cain will stay good on his word. He’ll never let me go.”
Her voice made my blood run cold. A small burn started boiling inside me. I wanted revenge on everyone who had fucked me and my family over. If Cain so much as thought of backing down on this deal, his head would be mine.
“Faith,” I warned, but she shook her head and backed away from me.
“Cain won’t ever let me go, Ryker. He’d kill me first, and I don’t even want to think about what he’d do to my mom.”
“Your mom? She fucking gave you to him.”
“Sold,” Faith snapped, and her lips pressed together. “I wasn’t given. I was sold for drugs.”
I knew that. It didn’t make me feel any calmer as Faith snapped it at me like she didn’t give a shit. Although maybe she didn’t.
“And it doesn’t mean I want her dead. She’s the only family I have.”
Was she fucking serious? I wanted her mom’s head on a platter. Any willingness I had to protect that woman five years ago was long gone. Roxy Winston had been a drain on their family for Faith’s entire life.
“He backs down on his deal, on this agreement, and his ass is mine.” I bent down and growled it inches from her face so she could see how serious I was. Then I pulled back. There was so much I wanted to apologize to her for. So much shit I wanted to get off my chest. “Faith-”
“Don’t you get it, Ryker?” She stepped away from me and slowly turned around. Before I could process what she was doing, her back faced me as she lowered her robe. With her arms bent at the sides, the robe fell down her back and draped across the back of her waist. She reached up with one hand and pulled her hair over her shoulder so I could see the black lace.
I wanted to run my hands over her skin and feel the lace beneath my fingers. But I stopped myself. My eyebrows pulled in, confused as to what she was trying to show me.
“Look,” she said. “Look closer.”
I did. I moved in and bent down and watched her shiver beneath my hooded gaze. And then I felt the need to hit something because I could finally see what she wanted me to see.
“Faith,” I said as I lightly reached out and began tracing the scars with the tip of my thumb. My teeth ground together and my jaw radiated in pain from trying not to scream at her. I could barely see them under the lace, but they were there. White scars, some still pink. I moved the robe down, wishing the lace was gone so I could see the maze of angry slashes and scars that decorated her fucking gorgeous skin.
“What is this?” I growled. The back of the robe was fisted in my hands and I pulled it off. I didn’t see the beauty in front of me, the woman who could always make my dick hard in seconds. Now I saw the broken and marred skin and all of it was my own damn fucking fault for not taking a minute five years ago to stop and think for one damn second.
Faith looked at me from over her shoulder. I dragged my eyes, reluctantly pulling them off her skin and scars, and saw the deadness in her eyes. “Disobedience has its consequences.”
She shrugged her shoulders and moved away from me, but I stopped her. One hand went to her waist, and I tightened my grip on her hip before she could walk away. I stared at my hand on her skin, wishing I was touching her for a different reason.
“I’m so fucking sorry.”
Her eyes grew wet before she looked away from me to the floor. My fingers twitched on her hip, and I felt her jump slightly.
“Faith,” I said, my throat raw with pain and regret. “We’ll free you from them. I fucking swear it.”
She spun around, and my hand fell from her skin down to my side. She reached out, grabbed the robe from my other hand, and shrugged it on, knotting the belt tightly around her waist.
“What you don’t understand,” she said quietly, “is that I’ll never be free again.”
“Faith.”
She shook her head and pointed at the door to the bedroom. “Is there anything else you need from me tonight or can I go?”
Was she kidding? There was no way I was fucking letting her go now.
“I want to talk, to figure out what to do now.”
She smiled sadly. It didn’t reach her eyes, and I could tell she was still fighting to not lose it in front of me, but I didn’t want her to go. I didn’t want to say good-bye.
“There’s nothing you can do. My fate was sealed the moment Cain showed up at my house that night.”
I shook my head. It wasn’t.
She took another step toward the door to the bedroom and looked back at me. “I think… I’m going to go to bed, then.”
I opened my mouth to speak, to tell her that I didn’t want her to, but I let her go. I could at least give her one night where she felt safe and was able to sleep alone, knowing no one was going to hurt her.
“I get it, you know,” she said softly as she reached the doorway. “I get why you were messed up and why you left. You don’t owe me that apology. But for years I waited for you to show up and save me.” A tear fell down her cheek before she wiped it away. “There’s nothing left to save, Ryker.”
She disappeared through the doorway, shutting and locking the bedroom door before I could stop her. Before I could swear that I would save her and free her and I’d do whatever the fuck she needed me to do, to be whoever she needed to be. But I didn’t.
Because even that would be a lie.
Just like she felt she’d never be free, I would never be the Ryker she knew.
I collapsed back on the couch, listening to the sounds of the running water, and staring at the light coming from the bedroom door, hoping Faith would come back out so we could talk. So we could figure out how to fix everything.
But she never did. And when the light went out underneath her door and the noises stopped, I kept staring and wishing I could have been the man she needed me to be way back when I was still capable of being that man.