I STOOD ON THE HOTEL balcony staring at his condo because I was pathetic. I sipped my disgusting in-room coffee as the breeze lifted the edge of my white nightgown, and I fantasized about André walking out on his balcony.
But he never did.
For three weeks, I’d been staring at the same view. I didn’t give a shit that I was free. This was worse. I could do anything, go anywhere, but I was in an oceanfront hotel in Miami Beach that I’d paid cash for, up-front, for a month.
Four weeks.
That’s how long I was giving this.
I didn’t even know what the fuck this was. Just that I needed to stay here one month and see. Maybe he’d come after me, maybe he wouldn’t. I didn’t make it easy. After we’d gotten back to his condo from the compound, he’d coldly said he’d needed to go to his office for a couple hours.
I watched him walk away without so much as a backward glance. My heart fucking imploding, I’d dumped my cell, called a cab, and gone to the airport. I’d booked the first available flight, but when the plane stopped in Atlanta on its way to New York, I’d gotten off. I bought a piece of shit beater car off a used lot and paid the guy extra not to report the sale for one month. Then I’d driven here, to a fucking hotel in Miami Beach with a perfect view of André’s penthouse because I was so lost, I couldn’t breathe.
And what had three weeks netted me?
Two glimpses.
And not even of him.
Just two nights, late as hell, I’d seen a light go on in the master bedroom then off a few minutes later.
That was it.
That was all I’d seen of the man who’d risked everything to give me my freedom.
Fuck André Luna.
I went back into the suite and dumped the shitty coffee, then grabbed my bikini off the towel bar in the bathroom. It was small and white like most of my new wardrobe, but more than that, it showed off my branding. I’d thought about having the scarred skin covered, adding to it, doing something to change it, maybe inking over it, but even the thought pissed me off. I didn’t want to have to alter myself anymore for the asshole who’d robbed me of more than twenty years of my life.
Yanking the nightgown off and reaching for the suit, I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror and it made me pause. I’d gone to a salon in Atlanta and had my hair put back to almost its original color. It was close enough that the inch it’d grown, you couldn’t tell there was a difference. A light, warm brown, it was the color of my eyes on a cloudy day. I looked younger… and innocent. I hated it, the innocence part, but this was the new me. The new old me.
I twisted my hair up and put on the bikini. My skin had turned golden brown from swimming in the ocean every day, and I almost looked like who I once was. Grabbing my white, see-through cover-up, I’d just started for the door when a knock sounded.
My heart jumped and an ingrained fear I didn’t know if I would ever overcome jolted my nerves. Sucking in a deep breath, a hand over my heart, I told myself it was only housekeeping, but I still looked through the peephole.
Then every muscle in my body froze.
Even with his head down, there was no mistaking who it was.
I opened the door. “What are you doing here?”
His hair combed and pulled back into a partial ponytail, cargo pants covering his long legs and a collared shirt tight across his chest, Hero stood in front of me, larger than life, in civilian clothes. “Decima,” he said quietly, scanning my face then dropping his gaze to my bikini.
I didn’t move because I didn’t know what I was feeling. Anger, joy, grief? Of all the people I’d thought might find me, he was the last I ever considered, but he should’ve been the first. Hero was a hunter. As sure as I could smell his soap and musk, he could sniff out my scent. “Kendall,” I corrected, finally finding my voice.
His chest rose and fell three times as he stared at me. “You will always be my Decima.”
I swallowed back memories and asked a question I had no right to ask. “Yours?”
He nodded once. “You were mine.”
I had to ask. “Why did you do it?” I silently prayed he’d had his own reason to kill River, not just that he was saving me from myself. Guilt had been eating at me for three weeks, but I didn’t know if he’d want to hear an apology or a thank-you from me. He’d made a sacrifice for me I could never repay.
“River Stephens was not a good man.”
Simple. Honest. The statement belied the violence that had ended my father’s life. “That’s it?”
Nothing in Hero’s guarded expression changed. “Yes. Do not give it any more thought.”
The turn of phrase was one Hero had used on me before. I had no choice but to take him at face value. Then, as one problem was knocked out by another, the other thing I’d been obsessing over tumbled out of my mouth.
“You never gave me children.” I’d spent three weeks remembering every second of André’s body in mine. Not that it mattered. André had never come looking for me, and I wasn’t pregnant. I certainly couldn’t go back to being the girl who’d once slept in this hunter’s bed, but I kept thinking about what Hero had done for me all those years and what he hadn’t. “You never said why.”
Hero studied my face for a long moment. Then he glanced at my hair. “I like you this way.”
Feeling suddenly overexposed, I crossed my arms. “I asked you a question.”
“You made a statement. May I come in?”
Did I want him to come in? Could I refuse him? I could shut the door and ignore him, but I knew what really lay disguised under those clothes. Hero was a hunter. A hunter who still hadn’t answered my question, and now I had another. “Why are you in civilian clothes?”
This time he didn’t hesitate to answer. “I am a civilian.”
I inhaled as guilt festered like an open sore. I was glad River was dead, so fucking glad. I didn’t even have nightmares anymore, but I’d put Hero in a horrible situation. Despite what he’d just told me, he’d lost the only life he knew, and he’d have to deal with his own guilt. But nothing would change who Hero was at his core. “You’re a hunter.” Always was, always would be.
“Today, I am not hunting wild deer.”
The way he said it, I knew what he was implying. “You’re hunting me.”
Unashamed, he nodded once. “For three sunsets.”
I couldn’t help it, I smirked. “It took you that long?”
“I found you on the first day after….” He trailed off. Hero never left a sentence unfinished.
“After?”
His gaze locked on mine, he didn’t answer at first. “I found you the first day I started looking.” He glanced around, as if indicating the hotel. “It is not a daisy, but still a flower.”
I didn’t know if I wanted to cry or hate the fucking universe because we would never be right for each other. I would never be right for him. “The Orchid.” He was right. The hotel wasn’t called the Daisy, but it was still a flower, and a flower had changed my life.
I stepped back to let Hero in.
His huge frame brushed past me with a whisper of silence and grace only a man who spent his time not being seen could achieve. His familiar scent coasted by, and a headful of memories made me long for a simpler time.
He quietly moved to the view. “I watched you for two days.”
I noticed his use of the common term for day and wondered what had happened to him the past few years. “You always were a voyeur.” I didn’t used to mind because it was always me he’d been watching on the compound when he wasn’t hunting. It’d made me feel safe.
He didn’t pick up my comment. “You did not go to see the soldier.”
I didn’t pretend I didn’t know who he was talking about. “Marine, not soldier. Your point?”
He turned and his gaze traveled down my body, but unlike André, I couldn’t read anything in his expression. “You are not bound to him?”
I slipped my see-though cover-up over my head. It wasn’t much, but it was something. “You already know I’m not. Why are you here?”
His voice got quieter. “Are you bound to Tarquin?”
“No.” Definitely not.
“He came to save you.”
I was shaking my head before Hero finished the sentence. “Tarquin isn’t interested in saving anyone but himself. He was doing that out of duty because it was a member of his motorcycle gang that recognized my branding and the LCs were trying to kill me for the bounty. Tarquin felt guilty. Instead of telling his MC not to come after me, he was going after River.”
Hero was silent a moment. “He had his own reasons.”
I nodded in agreement. “He did.” River had done a number on Candle.
Hero studied me. “The marine came to me a fortnight ago. He was looking for you.”
I held back my shock, but not the punishing longing I felt for a man I’d given my heart and body to on a boat in the ocean. “Two weeks and you’re just now deciding to come see me? Why?” Hesitation wasn’t in Hero’s vocabulary.
Instead of answering my question, Hero gave me the answer to another one. “I didn’t swell your body with my seed because you didn’t want me.”
I didn’t remember moving to the couch and dropping onto the cushions. I didn’t feel the soft fabric on the back of my legs. I didn’t notice a hunter’s intent gaze as he watched my emotions take a nosedive.
This was life.
Cruel and unforgiving.
You were born, you drew your first breath, then everything until death was an uphill battle. The weak didn’t survive. Life gave you everything you never wanted, then it took what you craved the most and threw it in your face.
Hero was right. I hadn’t wanted his children. But I never had a choice because he’d never come inside me. All those nights, all those years, Hero had never given me a choice and he’d never, not once, told me how he felt.
But the man whose smile shone with a joy for life and an understanding that happiness was everywhere you could grab it, the man who said he’d wanted to come inside me? He wasn’t here.
“You never said you wanted me to have your children.” I threw it back on Hero because I was angry at the world.
“I protected you.” Hero didn’t raise his voice, but the anger was there.
My shoulders dropped, and I hung my head a moment before I stood up. I couldn’t fight this fight. Not with him. He was right. He’d protected me from so much on the compound, and I owed him at least my gratitude. “Coffee?” I moved toward the small kitchen because I didn’t know how to begin to thank him.
His hand wrapped around my arm, and I froze.
“I never wanted you sad,” he said quietly.
I looked up into his stark blue eyes. “Prisoners are never happy.” And that’s what I’d been. I didn’t fully understand it until I’d been taken away by the Feds, but I had never been free at River Ranch. I’d dreamed about escape. I’d thrown frivolous words at Hero about running, but I was never going to leave on my own because I didn’t understand how not to be a prisoner. Hero had given me a taste of independence, but just like River, he’d never given me freedom.
Hero dropped his hand. “Now you are free.”
“My flesh is branded by my past.” I would never truly be free.
“Your past will either define you or motivate you. It is a choice.”
It was my turn to stare at him, and the man he’d become. “When did you get so smart?”
“I was never ignorant.”
I fought a sad smile and lost. “No, you weren’t.”
“But that still did not make you want me.”
I was trying to decide if it would it be crueler to remain silent or give him affirmation when he spoke again.
“Nor did you ever want Tarquin.”
“My heart is my own,” I lied.
He saw right through me. “You gave yourself to the marine.”
I exhaled in frustration. “I’m alone in a hotel, Hero.”
His gaze didn’t waver. “An expensive hotel.”
It wasn’t an accusation, but a question of judgment. We grew up with nothing, and the old me would have seen this place exactly how he was looking at it. An overindulgence at best and a shameful waste of resources at worst.
I told him the truth. “The FBI had a reward for information leading to the arrest of critical River Ranch members.” I didn’t take my eyes off him, because I wasn’t going to be ashamed about my decisions. “Did you know about it?”
He surprised me by nodding once.
I told him the rest before I lost my nerve. “After the raid, after River had held me hostage and cut me, he then threw me out to save himself. The Feds caught me and I told then everything they wanted to know.”
“Not everything,” he corrected.
Defiance bled into my tone. “Everything I knew, I told them, and they gave me that reward.” I’d earned it. “I haven’t spent a dime of that money, but now I am.” I was going to spend it all. I turned toward the kitchen.
“You didn’t tell them about me.”
I stilled. Then I gave Hero the truth he’d come here for. “You were mine. Not theirs.” Hero was the one person I’d left out of every conversation I’d ever had with the ATF.
“Decima, turn around.”
“I’m not her anymore.” The protest flew off my lips, but I would always be his Decima. For the short period in my life that he’d had me, that he’d protected me, I’d been true to him. But that life was gone, and I didn’t want it back.
“Turn.”
The command—quiet, simple—was anything but. In a testament of who I was raised to be, I obediently turned.
His eyes met mine. “The land is yours.”
I sucked in a sharp breath. “What?”
“The land. I am deeding it to you.” He pulled papers from his cargo pocket and carefully unfolded them. Then with his eyes on me, he held them out.
Unable not to look, I glanced down. Then, for the third time this morning, my heart jumped to my throat, and I stepped back. “That says my name.” Kendall Reed. The name the ATF had given me. The legal name they’d given me. Right above River’s unmistakable signature, signing his entire life’s worth over to a Callan Anders in the event of his death.
Hero nodded. “I asked the marine.”
I stared at the paper, not sure why that made me feel betrayed. “Who is Callan Anders?”
Hero didn’t reply.
I looked up.
“I was not born on compound,” he quietly explained. “Callan Anders is my birth name.”
A twisted sickness gripped my chest and made me feel even more betrayed. While I’d been living three years of hell with a bounty on my head, he’d been kissing River’s ass and getting him to sign over his entire legacy to him? I’d thought Hero was my protector. “Keep your fucking deed, I don’t want it.”
Moving slow, as if he didn’t want to spook me, Hero set the paperwork on the table. “The land belongs to you.”
Anger, impotent and irrational, grew into a storm the size of three years of hell. “What the hell is wrong with you? You actually think I want that land?” I threw my outstretched accusing finger toward the door like my self-righteousness would make any kind of a difference. “Get out!”
Hero didn’t move. “I was his best hunter. He made me his counsel after… you were gone.”
What the fuck? “So that justifies you kissing his ass to get the compound?”
“I neither asked, nor expected anything in return for my duty. That deed was a final manipulation he thought he could control. I will not be controlled anymore. I am giving you what is yours. Sell the land. Take the money.”
My mind racing, I tried to wrap my head around the most words Hero had ever given me at once and make it false, but it kept coming back as the one thing I didn’t want it to be. Logical. “That’s why you killed him.” My anger dissipated somewhat as I realized Hero had been his prisoner just as much as I was, but I couldn’t help but think, unlike me, Hero could have left anytime he’d wanted. He was strong and armed and knew every way to get in and out of River Ranch.
Hero said nothing.
My head hurt, my stomach hurt, and my heart hurt.
I couldn’t do this anymore.
I grabbed the papers off the table the shoved them into his chest. “Congratulations, you’re the new owner of River Ranch.” I walked to the door
He tucked the papers back in his pocket and walked right up to me. “I did not ask for this.”
“Good for you.” I didn’t look at him.
“I was not born into this.”
I hated how I selfishly felt so goddamn alone when I should’ve been glad he wasn’t born on the compound, but it was just another fact that brought home how little he’d shared with me and how much trust I’d stupidly given him. “Awesome. Get out.”
His heavy boots did not move out of my line of vision. “There is no one left.”
“I’m sure you’ll have no problem carrying the torch and finding new members.” Even though I’d hated River with every fiber of my being, I felt so fucking betrayed that a father who should’ve loved me not only wanted me dead, but chose the person I’d been closest to as his heir.
Hero gripped my jaw in the expanse of his huge hand and whipped my head up, forcing me to look at him. For the first time in my life, I saw rage on his face.
“River Ranch is dead,” he bit out. “Your father is dead. The compound is destroyed because I made sure of it. This ends here.”
I swallowed back shock.
“I will unburden you of the land because that is what you ask, but do not ever mistake me again for a traitor to you.” He dropped his hold on me and wrenched the door open.
Tears filled my eyes, and I reached for him. “Hero.”
He yanked his hand out of my grasp and strode to the elevator.
“Callan?” The name sounded both foreign yet somehow appropriate, but one question was growing too big to ignore. “Did you always know?”
“No.” He hit the elevator button. “After he made me his counsel, he gave me my birth certificate, told me my parents were dead because they had not honored the doctrine of River Ranch.” His haunted gaze met mine. “Then he’d said he was my true family.”
The kinship I’d always felt for Hero came shamefully back, and I grabbed my room key. “Wait.” I walked barefoot toward him like the old days, but unlike the old days, I put my arms around him in public.
His body stiffened, and he made no move to hug me back.
“I’m sorry,” I said quietly. “I wish I had been there for you.”
His arms came around me, and the anger in his voice turned to clipped acceptance. “I am glad you were not.”
I didn’t take offense. I knew what he meant. “What will you do?”
“Sell the land.” The elevator dinged its arrival, and he released me.
I wanted to give him words that meant more than platitudes, but I didn’t know how to do that. “Be safe.”
His stark blue gaze held me for a moment. “Goodbye, Decima.”
“Goodbye, Hero.” The doors slid closed.
I didn’t know how long I stood there staring at the closed door to my past before I turned to the stairs and went out to the beach for my daily swim.