“What the fuck are you doing?” My voice booms through the room, startling Isabel so much she drops her mobile. I don’t fucking care. My fists clench tight, and if they were around her neck right now they’d be itching to strangle her.

I cross the room in two steps and the thing is my hand before she can do anything to stop me. “I —” she starts to babble. “I wasn’t doing —”

“Don’t fucking lie to me, Isabel!” I shout. I glance down at the screen to see the fucking phone is connected to whatever number she’s rung. The contact name says Deb. I hear a thin, tinny female voice screech through the receiver. “Hello? Izzy? Oh my God, is that you?”

I start to hold down the button to shut the damn thing off, but as soon as the screen goes black I let loose a roar of outrage and fling the fucking thing across the room. It crashes against the wall and falls to the floor. Isabel gapes at me, a mixture of fear and horror on her face. She backs away a few paces, putting the bed between her and me.

“What the fuck were you thinking!” I shout, closing the space between us until I’m towering over her. “After all of this, after everything that’s happened, you’re still trying to fucking escape?” My mind has gone numb from fury. I came in here from outside to try to make amends after yelling at her earlier. But instead, I find this. I glance over at my duffel, suddenly realizing she must have been digging through it. Sitting next to it on the dresser is her little purse and its contents, including a tube of pepper spray. Christ, was she planning on using that on me? My fists clench even tighter. Letting out another roar of anger, I turn and punch the wall, hard, so I don’t hurt her instead. The pain is welcome. It focuses me, gives the anger somewhere to go.

“Thorn!” Isabel’s voice cracks, barely above a whisper. I turn back to her, and my face must be something to see, because she shrinks away from me in horror and starts to tremble. “I swear,” she whispers, shaking her head. “I swear, I wasn’t trying to do what you think I was! I swear, I was only trying to make a quick call to my friend! The one I was with when Oz’s men took me!” Her eyes fill. “I just wanted to hear a friendly voice, and tell her I’m okay!”

“You expect me to believe that?” I laugh incredulously. “Jesus fucking Christ!” I rake my hand through my hair.

“Yes! I do, because it’s true!” she cries. Tears start to spill down her cheeks. “I promise Thorn! I swear, I wouldn’t lie to you!”

“You wouldn’t lie to me?!” I repeat, stunned. “What the fuck do you call this, then?” I sweep my hand toward the contents of her purse. Isabel at least has the sense to look ashamed. Her cheeks redden as she casts her eyes down toward the floor.

“I didn’t mean to!” she insists, but her voice is unsteady, like she knows she’s fighting a losing battle. “I just… I saw the strap of my purse in your bag a couple days ago and, well…” She looks up at me helplessly. “I’m sorry, Thorn… I’m just so lonely, and you’re so angry at me all the time, and…” More tears slide down her cheeks. “I promise,” she finishes in a desolate whisper. “I just wanted to talk to my friend for a couple of minutes. That’s all.”

Her lips are trembling as the tears continue to come. She makes little snuffling noises as she cries but tries to suppress them, staring down at the floor like she knows there’s nothing more to say.

I shouldn’t fucking believe her. I should assume every single bloody thing out of this girl’s mouth is a lie. But in spite of myself, I do. It rings true, what she’s saying. I’ve been staying away from her since the night I told her about Jimmy. At least during the day. It’s for her own good, and our safety, to be sure. But at night, I haven’t been able to stop myself from taking her. From coming back for more. She’s like a drug.

I can see why she’d think I was angry at her. Even though I don’t want to see it. I find myself trying to imagine what the last few days have been like for her. No one to talk to, nothing to do, and me leaving her alone inside to twiddle her thumbs while I stay outside and try to talk myself out of going to her bed again when the darkness comes.

Maybe it’s only natural that eventually she’d look for some way to connect with a friend. Maybe it really is as simple as that.

I feel my anger draining out of me as quickly as it came. Most of it, anyway. There’s still a bit left, because the fact is what she did was fucking stupid. And I tell her so, as I sit tiredly on the bed and rest my head in my hands.

“I just wanted to talk to Deb for a minute,” Isabel says weakly, and leans against the wall. “She hasn’t heard from me since the night I disappeared. She must be worried sick. I just wanted to tell her I was okay.”

“Don’t you realize the men who’re looking for you could have traced the call?” I sigh. “Jesus, what an idiotic thing to do, Isabel.”

“Don’t call me an idiot!” she protests, a thin flare of her own anger coming to the surface.

“I didn’t call you an idiot!” I bark back at her. “Besides, if you don’t want me to call you an idiot, then stop acting like one!”

“Well, maybe you could just talk to me once in a while, then!” She throws up her hands in frustration. “God, Thorn, what do you expect me to do? I sit in this house all day by myself while you go out and do whatever. I don’t even know what I’ve done to make you hate me so much all of a sudden!”

“Hate you?” Jesus, does she really not know?

“Yes!” She stomps her foot, then looks sort of ashamed that she’s done something so childish. “It’s not my fault, Thorn! I’m sorry my dad hired you — or forced you — to do this. I’m sorry I’m his daughter. I’m sorry I’m even here, messed up in all this! All I wanted was to just take my stupid classes at the stupid community college, and live my stupid life, far from the Death Devils and everything they represent. I didn’t ask you to be here, and I wish to God I could just tell you to leave!”

“You do?”

My eyes meet hers, and she looks quickly away.

“I mean…” She trails off. “I just mean, I wish you didn’t have to be messed up in all this.”

“Isabel.” I take a step toward her, trying to ignore the sudden stiffness of my cock as I notice how hard her nipples are under her shirt. “My job is to keep you safe. You are not helping me do that job by going behind my back.”

“I know.” Her voice is subdued. I hear just a trace of the breathiness in her throat that’s there right before I plunge myself inside her. My shaft begins to throb.

“I swear to you,” I say, grabbing her face in my hand and turning it toward me. “If you have any thoughts of trying to escape, don’t. You won’t live through it.” I don’t mean what I’ll do to her. The thought of her in Fowler’s hands creates a knot of nausea in the pit of my stomach. I see her as he would see her.

And I know what he would do to her before he killed her.

“I promise I didn’t. I don’t.”

Isabel’s voice is breathless. Her dark, stormy eyes are wide, frightened as she looks up at me. For the millionth time, my brain curses that I’m stuck protecting someone I don’t want the responsibility for. Protecting a brother, that’s one thing. Every man in the Lords of Carnage would die to protect the others. It’s a vow we all made when we were patched in. We’re all equals. We all signed on for the same thing. We have each other’s backs. But this…

This… has changed.

My gut clenches as my brain wrestles with a thought that’s forced its way in without my even knowing it.

This used to be about protecting a spoiled MC princess. It used to be a fucked-up job that I was doing because my club prez demanded it. And because the Lords needed it. I didn’t give a damn about Oz, or the Death Devils, or this girl, beyond what it meant for the brothers I promised to ride and die for.

It used to be something I couldn’t wait to be done with. So I’d never have to see Isabel again. Or so I told myself.

Here in the States, the life I left behind in Ireland is far away from me. Here, I don’t have a mother, a family, a past. All I have is the club, and my role in it.

But as I stare down into Isabel’s eyes — frightened but trusting — it’s like she’s a siren, calling me toward something I want to resist with everything I have in me.

“Thorn,” she whispers. “Please forgive me. I didn’t mean…” Her breath hitches. “I didn’t mean to betray you. I just didn’t think. All I wanted was to talk to someone who missed me.” She blinks and looks away. “Just to remind myself I’m still… real. That I still exist, to the world outside.”

My heart twists in sympathy for her. I know she didn’t ask for this. But I make one more desperate attempt to push her away. “Jesus Christ, woman!” I say gruffly, frowning down at her instead. “What the fuck does that mean?”

“Stop that!” Isabel cries. She yanks herself out of my grasp and, rounds on me. “Stop calling me woman like it’s an insult! Just because I don’t have a… cock, doesn’t mean you get to treat me like I’m some sort of idiot!”

Watching her plump lips as she stumbles over the word sends a jolt through my dick like she’s just told me she wants to suck it. In spite of the tension between us, I have to laugh. “You don’t like saying it,” I growl at her. “But you sure do like it, don’t you, girl?”

“Why do you get off on making me feel like shit?” she yells, flinging out her arms in exasperation. “Why do you hate me so much? What have I ever done to you?”

My body has a mind of its own as I grab her by the wrists and pull her to me. “I’ve told you already, I don’t hate you,” I growl against her ear. “That’s the whole problem, Isabel. I’ve been trying to hate you since the day I met you. It’s my bad luck I can’t seem to manage it.”

Isabel shivers and instinctively molds her body against mine, letting out a soft moan. Without even reaching between her legs to touch her, I know she’s wet for me. Ready.

I can’t hold back anymore. I’ve been fooling myself these last few weeks, telling myself the reason I can’t stay away from her is just because she’s here, she’s close, and there’s no one else around. But this is more than that. Much more. This girl’s found her way inside me. At this point, even if her father told her my job was done, I’d protect and defend Isabel until my dying breath. It’s no longer just a job to me. It’s personal.

She belongs to me. Her body, her soul. Every orgasm she’ll ever have. All of it: Mine.

It’s time to show her that.

And then, it’s time to end the motherfuckers who are trying to hurt her. Once and for all.