“Church,” Hansen said as soon as we entered the clubhouse.

Cain hadn’t let me put distance between us and had yanked me into his arms the second we got off the bike.

I stepped out of his grasp, preparing to head to my small office to do some work.

“You too, Scarlett.”

I glanced at Hansen in surprise. Non-patched members were not allowed in church. Especially not women.

“All the Old Ladies are gonna be hearin’ this,” Hansen explained.

“I’m not an—”

“You’re fuckin’ comin’,” Cain interrupted, yanking me back into his body.

I stiffened. Or I tried to. My body was traitorous around him. I relaxed into him on instinct.

It wouldn’t do well to argue, to cause a scene. And a scene was the only thing that would get me out of Cain’s firm grip. I was mindful of the time and where I needed to be. Maybe I’d slip out, do the thing that would put another scar on my soul and just never come back. Disappear into the world that swallowed girls like me.

Cain walked is into the room bikers used as ‘church.’ It was bursting with not only the men from the Amber chapter but their Old Ladies and the two remaining members of our chapter.

Bex winked at me. I smiled back.

Macy grinned at me tucked into Cain’s shoulder. We hadn’t properly spoken but I knew she was glad about this turn of events. She was a romantic, after all.

There was one chair left, so naturally Cain sat in it and yanked me onto his knee. I glared at him.

Amy smirked at me.

“Right,” Cade spoke, eyes moving from the woman who was standing beside him. “We’ve got news about who did this. Had my suspicions since the start. Know we all did. But Wire got us solid intel that it was Fernandez.”

Curses all around the table.

I knew who Fernandez was, though I wasn’t meant to. He was one of the most dangerous human traffickers in the world. The Sons of Templar had been trying to quietly take him down ever since he kidnapped Cade’s sister and was inadvertently responsible for something horrific happening to a woman connected to the club. That assault had been recent and brutal.

Deep. Most men patched into the Sons of Templar were fierce in their ideas about women. Some of these ideas not so great, but all of them were against men putting hands on women.

The Amber chapter more so than any, considering their history. One of the Old Ladies was brutally raped and murdered some years ago, and everyone at the table had gone through violence to get them sitting here. I knew Bex’s story was darker than most. That it lived in the same darkness as mine.

“Don’t know why in the fuck he started here,” Cade continued. “Considerin’ it’s my chapter doin’ most of the digging.” He looked to Hansen, Jagger, and surprisingly, me. “You’ve got my apologies that this shit was brought to you. That it cut you. Know words don’t mean shit after blood has been spilled and graves have been dug, but just know I’m not gonna rest until that fucker is wiped from this earth.”

Hansen clapped him on the shoulder. “No one to blame for this but this fucker. We’re gonna get him.” He looked to his wife. “We’ve got you women in here because we know you’ve already been through shit. But Fernandez doesn’t know the rules we live by. And women are by no means off limits to him. We know what he does.” He paused, seemingly unable to continue until he’d yanked Macy to his side, resting his hand on her bump. “So we’re gonna have extra security on all of you because we’re not takin’ any chances. This club is done bleeding. It’s time to do the cutting.”

“And we’re askin’ for none of the usual noise about protection detail,” Cade said, looking to his wife pointedly. “Because you know this shit is serious. And you know that we’re not gonna function if something happens to our women. That we’re not gonna weather another loss.” His eyes touched on Bull, who had his wife Mia on his lap. “We’re gonna make sure this is short. But it’s gonna be bloody.”

“You better make sure it’s their blood and not any of yours,” Bex interrupted. “Because you can spout shit about women needing to be protected, but it’s actually you men going in to fight an international criminal and I swear to God if something happens to my husband because of this, I’ll start cutting fuckers...and I won’t stop.”

Lucky yanked her into his chest. “Nothing’s gonna happen to me, baby,” he murmured. “I’m much too awesome to get killed.”

Bex rolled her eyes. But real fear lay beyond her expression. Every woman in the room wore it. Every woman was terrified of being Linda, of having their whole world, the man who looked so unbeatable—bleeding at her feet, buried in the ground. The image of that had me unwittingly clutching the back of Cain’s neck, forgetting I was meant to be distancing myself, not holding on tighter.

He squeezed me, yanking me in to kiss my neck.

“There’s more to talk about, but know you’ve gotta go, Scar,” Hansen said, interrupting the moment.

“You know?” I repeated, shocked.

Hansen nodded once.

“Do you know...” I trailed off, unable to even voice a vague question to see whether he knew it all. I was mindful of the quiet in the room, the fact the focus was on me. Most of these women’s demons may have been out in the open, but mine were never getting free. I wouldn’t survive it.

“Just know where you go once a year, for the past five years,” Hansen said. “Make it a point to know things about our family.”

I jerked at the word.

Family.

Never had anyone alluded or spoken aloud such a thing about me in regards to the club. I knew they looked out for me, would beat someone up if I asked—kill someone if I asked even nicer, and let me be part of their world for longer than any regular club girl. But I didn’t realize they thought of me as anything more than a whore who was good with numbers.

I didn’t think of myself as much more than that.

“Don’t know specifics,” Hansen continued. “Your business.”

I wanted to give him a look of thanks, but the fact he’d said this with Cain in attendance kind of snatched the thank you right out of my mouth. Hansen wasn’t dumb, he knew what the fuck he was doing. And if I wasn’t mistaken, he was trying to push me and Cain together in some kind of fucked up matchmaking. Because he was an unreasonable alpha male, therefore he knew how an unreasonable alpha male was going to react to this—demand answers until all my skeletons had tumbled out of my closet.

I lifted my chin. “Yeah, it’s my business. Which is, of course, why you’re saying it to the whole table.”

The corner of his mouth twitched. “I’ll get you an escort to the prison.”

“I don’t need one,” I protested.

“Prison?” Cain repeated, snatching my attention.

“I think we’re gonna all have to go and do a thing...somewhere else,” Hansen said, eyes as light as they could be under the circumstances.

The room cleared quickly.

The men were here to plan a battle with an unknown enemy, ready to run into the unknown that could get them killed, but here they were running from a confrontation between a man and his...whatever I was.

Classic.

“Well, that’s one way to clear a room,” I muttered.

Cain grasped my chin, not lightly, and turned my head so I was forced to meet his eyes. “Prison?” he repeated. “Care to expand on why you’re goin’ to a prison?”

I tried to jerk out of his hold. He only squeezed tighter.

“No, I do not care to expand,” I replied, voice cold. No way could I spill my sordid and toxic past to him right here right now. I didn’t spill it to anyone. That was exactly how I stayed intact. Silence and denial.

“Let me go,” I demanded.

“No fuckin’ way.” The way he said it made it sound like Cain wasn’t just talking about right now.

“Cain, you can’t just hold onto me forever.”

His eyes glinted with something, the something that was in his eyes. “Can’t I?”

That should’ve sent bile running up my throat, should’ve turned my stomach. But it didn’t, it melted parts of me that should’ve stayed ice forever.

Especially on today of all days.

I ripped out of his grasp, the movement taking all of my strength. “This isn’t your business,” I said standing.

He stood too. glowering now. “Isn’t my business?” he repeated. “My cock has been inside you for more hours I’ve slept this past week. There isn’t a moment I don’t smell you on my skin, feel you on my dick, taste you on my lips. Not a moment you’re not drivin’ me crazy in one of the most insane and fuckin’ horrific things the club has had to go through.” He stepped forward, backing me into a wall. “You’re my fucking business.”

I stared at him. “You really want me to be your business? You really want to dive into my fucked up world?”

“I thought I made that pretty clear.”

I smiled. It was cold and empty. “Yeah, well let’s see if that answer stays the same when you know it all.”

“The answer isn’t gonna change.”

I raised my brow at his decisive tone. Then I took a breath and spilled. Spoke words that I hadn’t uttered in...well, ever.

Painted the walls with ugliness.

Death.

More of it.

Fifteen Years Earlier

“I hate you!” I screamed at my mom, stomping my foot for good measure.

I didn’t regret the words the second they left my mouth, not even when my mother’s body jerked slightly as if I’d hit her.

I did hate her. Right in that moment. For thinking she could still order me around like I was some kid.

“Well I don’t like you very much right now either,” she snapped. “And screaming hateful words at me and stomping your foot like a child isn’t getting you anywhere. Certainly not to a party where I know alcohol will be served and no parents will be present.”

I let out a frustrated scream. “What? Just because you were a loser in high school and a loser in adulthood, you don’t want me to have fun with my friends? You’re jealous,” I hissed. My urge to hurt my mother with verbal barbs was desperate, violent, almost outside of my control.

“Hey!” My father’s voice boomed as he stormed into the room and pulled my mother into his arms. He glared at me. “How dare you speak to your mother like that. What has gotten into you, Kate?”

The anger, hurt and disappointment in his tone mingled into a toxic cocktail, working to kill the anger in me.

Well, most of it.

The anger I felt at myself for putting the shimmer in my kind mother’s eyes still burned hot. And I wasn’t ready to aim it at myself.

“What’s gotten into me is I want to escape this house,” I hissed. “I want to escape this life, so I don’t end up sad and boring like the two of you!”

And I turned on my heel and stormed off, making sure to slam my bedroom door for good measure. Then, tears pouring down my face, I turned my stereo up to ear-splitting rock.

* * *

The music was still thumping when I blinked my eyes open what must’ve been hours later.

It was dark.

Pitch.

I hated naps.

They made me disoriented enough to think I’d slept through the year.

I had guessed it was going to be the middle of the night, but a glance at my clock said it was only just after ten.

That didn’t make sense.

Darkness blanketed the house, not a scrap of light peeked from under my door. I limped over to my window, the streetlights highlighting the shadow my house had become.

My stomach roiled uneasily with a sense of doom and fear I couldn’t place.

I wasn’t afraid of the dark.

I wasn’t a kid.

But something was wrong.

My parents were boring. They played chess and watched British documentaries. They drank tea instead. They didn’t drink, nor did they really have many friends.

“Your mom is my best friend, and I hers. And you’re both of ours,” my dad had replied when I’d asked him about their lack of friends in middle school.

And we had been that.

Best friends.

The three of us.

Until I grew boobs, and my hormones turned me into someone who didn’t want to play chess with her parents on a Friday.

I wanted to go to a party and see my boyfriend—who they didn’t know I had—and finally go to third base so I could be the first of my friends.

And now Samantha was probably going to first.

I frowned, thinking of the early hour and the fact my parents had obviously gone to bed much earlier than usual.

The party would still be in full swing.

I could go.

And be back before they woke up. They’d never know.

Who cared if they knew?

The disappointment on my father’s face crawled up my back like an insect and burrowed itself at the base of my neck. And the feeling of doom in the pit of my stomach intensified as I turned off my music to welcome in silence. Complete and utter eerie silence that wasn’t natural in my house.

My parents also slept with their door open—obviously their sex life was lame—and they used an ocean sound machine to help them sleep. I recently complained about hearing it in my room and countered it with sleeping with my headphones on, but I had liked it before. Without it, the house that had been warm was now icy.

“Stop being a pussy,” I hissed to myself and strode over to my door, opening it quickly and confidently.

The hall was crowded with shadows, varying degrees of black. The door to my parents’ room was ajar. No light peeked out.

My stomach turned again.

I forced myself to step forward like that stupid fricking heroine in every horror movie.

But this wasn’t a horror movie. This was my life.

That was make-believe.

This was real.

Horror movies didn’t exist in real life.

Horror only existed in other people’s lives. My parents just didn’t play the tape tonight, likely because my music would’ve drowned it out. And they went to sleep early because they were tired after a fight with their horrible daughter. Shame washed over me, mingled with the stark fear this strange dark quiet had brought. I had treated them terribly. Slung insults at them they didn’t deserve and I didn’t mean.

I failed to muster up any reasoning why this party, why losing my virginity before my friends was worth more than keeping my parent’s respect.

I bit my lip hard enough to draw blood as a floorboard creaked.

It’s just the house settling, I chanted in my head.

“Mom...Dad?” I called as I got into the doorway of their room.

A strange coppery scent replaced the usual lavender in the air. My mother sprayed it before bed.

More sickness in my stomach. I forced it away, reaching for the light switch. Everything would be better in the light. I was an idiot for roaming around in the dark, creating monsters out of shadows.

“I’m sorry to wake you, but I need to apologize—”

My words were snatched away by the light.

By what the light revealed.

I didn’t scream at the sight of my parents’ bloodied bodies.

Not even a swift intake of breath.

My body froze, ice moving in my veins as my eyes moved upward to the blood-spattered walls.

A single heart was painted beside a photo of me they had framed.

In their blood.

Another floorboard creaked.

Breath on my neck.

“It’s just us now...”

And then hands yanked me into a firm, bloodstained body.

Yanked me into a horror movie that was now my life.

Present Day

Cain had been frozen, like frozen to the fucking spot the entire time I spouted the details of my ugly past. About how I did lose my virginity that night, just like I had planned. But how it was stolen from me brutally, horribly.

About how I’d managed to escape, fight...after. He wasn’t prepared because I guessed most girls from before were broken, empty, begging for death after...that. But I was a born fighter. So I did fight. For my dead parents. And the dead girl who’d perished the second she saw her parents’ blood painting the walls.

Then how I entered the system because my parents were both only children and that all my grandparents were dead. It was good, though. The harsh, ugly life I lived in the group home. It required me to harden, to form the identity that got me through. That put me in circles that landed me as a club whore for the Sons of Templar.

If I hadn’t watched Cain’s chest rise and fall while I spoke, I would’ve thought he’d just died standing up, that’s how still he was.

Then he spoke. “Angel...”

The word was too soft, too fucking heartbreaking in the face of my raw nerves

“He called me Scarlett,” I interrupted, my voice hoarse as if I’d screamed in my memories trying to change the past. “Cops said it was some fucked up part of his psycho brain that had him killing families. Girls like me. Whores. He thought of us like everyone thought of Hester, but instead of wearing a scarlet A, we wore blood, pain, and eventually death. Well, the other girls at least.”

There were more than a few times I’d wondered if I would’ve been better just to let him kill me.

“He had some kind of fucked up childhood, like that’s fucking rare, like it’s an excuse for murdering six families, raping teenagers before mutilating their bodies.” I scoffed. “Plenty of people grew up rough and managed not to rape and murder. It’s a bullshit excuse. But it’s one that got him out of the death penalty...somehow.”

I sat front row at his hearing, determined to look him in the face and show him what he’d taken from me hadn’t given him control over me.

I threw up every morning I walked into the courthouse. And when I left. Then I’d go to the shitty foster home I was placed in, turn the shower to as cold as it could go—which wasn’t hard since it never actually got hot. I was determined to freeze my insides, to chill them to the bone so it wouldn’t hurt, so I could handle his triumphant sneer.

I was there when they sentenced him to life in prison without the possibility of the parole. That should’ve made me happy, to have him locked away like an animal for life.

But he was locked away holding a part of me that I pretended he didn’t take. And I wanted him to die, so that part of me could die too. Because I’d rather bury what was left of my innocence, what was left of the girl I was—the woman I was supposed to be—rather than have it in his possession until the end of his days.

I blinked Cain into focus. “He’s still locked up. Interestingly in the prison that’s a forty-minute drive from here. It must be dark kismet. I visit him every year, on the anniversary of my parents’ murder—which just happens to be today. Every new, fresh year is already tainted by the decaying and rotting bodies of my parents. It’s safe to say the holidays are not my favorite time of year.”

He jerked as if someone had tased him. “What?” he clipped, voice quiet.

“What else is there to do?” I asked. “They were cremated, no graves to go to, not that I’d visit them anywhere. Graveyards aren’t for the dead, they were built by the living to fuel their delusions about comfort in the face of loss. I’m a lot of things, but deluded is not one of them.”

His fists were clenched so tightly his knuckles were white. “You’re not deluded, yet you visit the man that murdered your parents that...”

“Raped me?” I finished helpfully as it became apparent he was unable to utter the word.

He jerked again.

I ignored that, his visceral, physical reaction to my pain. I had to. “I visit him to show him what I did. Where I put him. I’m the only person alive to identify him. I’m the one who testified against him. I’m the one that got away. And I know that fucks with him. I go to show him that I’m free, that I’m alive and he doesn’t control me. That he doesn’t scare me. He got to torture me for two hours, forty-eight minutes, twenty-three seconds. I plan on doing it to him for the rest of his life.”

“You’re not doin’ it this time,” Cain decided. “You’re not gonna get over that shit by facin’ a monster. I can’t let you fuck yourself up like that. Hurt yourself.”

My entire body froze with his words, all the places that had thawed the past week with him. The one that I had tricked myself into thinking was going to last for longer than the shadow of death that was dissipating. That might survive the revenge mission the men were planning. But it was now I realized I’d been doing the thing I’d spent over a decade avoiding for the sake of my survival.

Hoping.

“You don’t get to tell me how to react to my fucking trauma,” I hissed. “You don’t get ownership on how I deal with it just because you think you own my pussy. The last man that thought he owned it took it by force and killed my whole family.” I spat the words for their impact, not for the truth in them.

He jerked like I’d struck him. “Don’t you fucking compare me to him.”

“Well stop fucking acting like him,” I snapped. “No one owns me, or my pussy. Not the man who ruined my life and certainly not the one who tricked me into thinking that there was something left to salvage.”

“No, you’re not fucking doin’ that,” he hissed, advancing on me, he circled my neck with his hands. “You’re not shuttin’ down on me, goin’ cold. Pretending you don’t have feelings. Pretending you don’t feel this.” His other hand bit into my hip.

“I’m not going cold,” I replied. “I am cold. That’s who I am. I’m not going to be that warm, loving, smiling Old Lady. I’m not gonna fit in with all those other women at your club. You were living in a delusion, and I bought into it because a delusion was better than the death that brought us together in the first place. Now the dead are buried it’s time to bury whatever the fuck we pretended this was.”

“I wasn’t pretending, and I know you weren’t,” he growled. “You’re not gonna push me away with this bullshit just ‘cause you’re scared.”

I raised my brow, yanking out of his grip. “I’m not scared,” I uttered the first lie I’d spoken in years. “I’m realistic. And I’m late for visiting hours at the prison.”

I strode toward the door.

“I’m fuckin’ coming.”

His words gave me pause.

I turned. “No, you’re not.”

Cain’s entire body was shaking. “My woman is visiting the psychopath that murdered her fucking family and...raped her.” He ripped the word from his throat like it caused him physical pain. “Without me at her side.”

“You try and come in with me, see what happens,” I warned. “This is not a place for you. And if you don’t respect my wishes, I swear I’ll never talk to you for as long as I fucking live.”

I was sincere. He somehow could tell, because did nothing but nod once. But then he stepped forward as if he were going to take me into his arms. I scuttled back, holding my palm to him. “No,” I whispered. I couldn’t have him get stained with the dirt of my past. I couldn’t have him touch me right now when I felt so dirty.

“Angel, you can’t expect me not to touch you after that,” he hissed, voice raw.

I didn’t let it affect me.

Outwardly.

“That’s exactly what I expect.”

And then I turned and walked away.