While we climbed the stairs, Six shook his head and glanced over at Delilah, whose gaze was glued to me. He laughed. “She’s still got it bad, poor kid.”

“Still?” The fact that he inferred her feelings had been a long-term thing made me question my relationship with her even more—and what the hell kind of shit I had walked back into. Was I going to have to watch myself around her? I wished right then that I could at least remember something so I didn’t put my fucking foot in my mouth.

He stopped at the top of the stairs and turned to me. “How hard did you hit that thick head of yours, anyway?” Lowering his voice, he rubbed his chin and nodded. “Ever since you broke up with her and started out with Melody, man. You broke that chick’s heart. She wanted her place on the back of your bike and felt sure you were gonna give it to her.”

I scrunched my brow. “Oh… okay.”

“Yeah, she wasn’t the only one you pissed off. Sadie was pretty fucking angry too. But that’s a whole other story. Lolita has moved on now and Cally is fucking getting married. Can you believe it?”

Delilah, Melody, Sadie, Lolita and Cally? Fuck, I was a total player. What a dick. “I was kind of popular with the ladies, huh?”

“Oh, man. You were the guy to bed. All the chicks were after you. I got so fucking sick of hearing how you were the best lay ever and the shit you could do with your dick. A guy doesn’t wanna hear those things. You know?”

I shrugged. “I guess not.”

I was still trying to wrap my head around it all when he became sombre. “Yeah. Everyone was shocked when you took up with Melody. Fuck, man. She must have had some… Aw man. No, no, I won’t disrespect your girl. It’s just that… She was different, you know? You were in love. Deep love. But not in that pussy-whipped way the guys used to bust your chops about. Nah, man. You guys were just meant to be. Can’t fucking believe what happened. I’m so sorry, Cain.”

Anger needled at my insides at hearing him almost admit to being involved. Why else would he have said he was sorry? “What did you fucking do to her?” I growled as I stepped into his space and fronted up to him.

His face washed over with confusion. “What? You think I… Whoa, no, no, Cain you got it all wrong, buddy. Come on.” He gestured to the carved oak door at the top of the stairs and opened it.

At the head of a huge table sat a man who looked familiar from one of my dreams. His thick grey hair was tied back in a ponytail, and he had dark-rimmed glasses perched on his nose as he worked on some papers. When the door whispered shut behind us, he glanced up, paused, and then removed his spectacles.

“Well I’ll be…” He stood slowly and leaned on the table. “Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes?”

An uneasy twist still gripped my guts, and I glared back at the grey-bearded man as he began to make his way from his end of the table toward where I stood. He matched me in height.

When he came to a halt before me, he placed his hands on my shoulders. “Brother, we thought we’d lost you.” His voice cracked and he pulled me into my second strong, male embrace of the day.

Confusion and adrenaline coursed through my veins as I pulled away to connect with his pale blue eyes.

I felt a hand on my shoulder. “He’s had a rough time, Prez. Post-traumatic amnesia,” Six explained. “He can’t remember what happened to Mel.”

Colt closed his eyes and lowered his head. “Aww, fuck.”

“He needs answers.”

“No damn wonder. You’d better take a seat, Cain.” He gestured toward the chairs lining the table. “You won’t want to be standing for this.”

Six and Colt sat, and I followed suit. They shared an ominous glance, and Colt laced his fingers together on the table before him. He cleared his throat and took a deep breath.

“Now… as I don’t know how much you remember, you’ll have to stop me if I go too fast, okay?” I nodded and he continued. “Okay… We had a deal going down with Loki’s Legion. They were trying to buy some land on the edge of town, outside of the limits but a little too close for comfort. I met with Deak, their president. We talked and everything was amicable. So it seemed. They agreed not to pursue the land purchase if we agreed to give them some of the illegal alcohol trade in return as a good will gesture.”

So far I was keeping up but struggling to figure out where I fit in. “Okay. So what happened?”

“So we were keeping an eye on things. Making sure they didn’t encroach. One night some of our guys—Weasel, Rapid, and Popsicle—were out patrolling the land the Legion had been trying to buy. Some of the Legion were there with their old ladies, on Company land with their bikes, and when our guys confronted them, there was a showdown. Fists were flying at first, but then things turned bitter, and shots were fired. Deak’s daughter was there with one of their guys. I guess her dad had no idea she was seeing him. She tried to step in to calm things down, but she was caught in the crossfire and died. It was a bullet from your gun that killed her.” My head began to swim. I had killed a girl? I’d killed Deak’s fucking daughter? Oh, fuck. My stomach roiled and I was about to throw up. As if he saw the pallor of my skin and read my thoughts, Colt quickly carried on, “But you didn’t fire it. Weasel had taken your gun, you know, the engraved one your dad gave you? Anyways, he claimed it after you’d told us you’d be leaving, and you handed it over, saying you didn’t need it anymore. He dropped it at the scene and they were gunning for you after that.” I wasn’t sure whether I should be relieved that I hadn’t fired the fatal shot, but my gut continued to twist. This was a whole lot to process. And the fact that the names being thrown around were only vaguely familiar didn’t ease my stomach. If this guy had claimed my gun, I should know who the hell he was. But I couldn’t put a face to the name.

Colt leaned toward me. “When we told them you didn’t fire the shot, they didn’t believe us. Thought we were just covering for you. Deak wouldn’t meet with me. Anyway, they tried to get us in shit with the law when we were going across the county line to make a delivery, but we managed to sweet-talk the chief, and the paperwork got filed in the garbage. When the Legion realised they hadn’t sunk us that way, they set out to fuck you over. An eye for an eye. They were at the house on the day Melody signed the lease. Two of the Legion were hiding out in the bedroom closet and jumped out, intent on kidnapping her. But she kicked one in the balls and broke the other guy’s nose. She was trying to run away from them when she tripped and fell down the stairs.

“When they saw she was hurt really bad, the two guys freaked out and left her there, escaping out the back and across the fields onto the land they were trying to buy.”

My heart hammered at my chest as I heard Colt recount the death of my beloved Melody. Nausea washed over me and I leaned my head in my hands. “But… but if Melody got killed, why was Rosa taken? And what the fuck happened to me?”

Colt sighed heavily. “Because, son, as soon as you found out what had happened, you took your gun back from Weasel and went and killed one of the two guys who tried to kidnap Melody. The reason things went to hell is because it turned out you killed Deak’s younger brother.”

My skin crawled with cold sweat and I almost lost my breakfast. I’d killed a guy after all. The relief at not being the one who killed Deak’s daughter was short-lived. Who the hell was I? Who the hell am I now? Suddenly Kelly’s beautiful smiling face came to mind, and my stomach plummeted once more. What the hell would she think of me? I had killed a man. I was a cold-blooded murderer. Okay, so it was some kind of revenge killing, but two wrongs never make a damn right. She would never look at me again the same. If I hadn’t already lost her, this would have been the final nail in the coffin. My eyes began to sting and I was overcome with homesickness for a place that never should have been my home—but it was, because she was there. The need to crumple into Kelly’s arms and have her tell me she forgave me for all the shit in my past was so overwhelming. A strangled sob left my chest as I dropped my head forward into my hands again. Could this situation get any more fucked up?

Colt laced his fingers together before himself. “Deak snapped. He’d lost his daughter and his brother, and you were the fucking devil. He wanted you dead. He blamed you for his daughter’s death, and then you made shit a whole lot worse. And then I heard through Sadie that they were going to take Rosa.”

My eyes snapped up to meet Colt’s. “Sadie? I don’t—”

“She was one of the house bunnies,” Six chipped in. “You and Sadie used to fuck. She was one of many, Cain. You liked the ladies. Before you fell for Melody, that is. Sadie had it bad for you and didn’t take too kindly to losing you when you chose to be faithful to Mel. When all the shit went down, she left and joined the Legion in some stupid bid to get her revenge. But she heard stuff being said and felt bad, so she came to tell me.”

I turned to face Six. “Okay… So where did they take Rosa?”

Colt cleared his throat, and my head snapped back so that I could meet his gaze. “They didn’t take her.” Colt looked me right in the eyes as he delivered his news.

I shivered, not completely understanding but wanting to, needing to get to the bottom of things. “Then who did?”

“We did.” Colt’s matter-of-fact tone made the hairs on my arms stand to attention.

I stood, ready to pounce. “What the fuck?”

Six stood beside me and placed his hands on my shoulders.

I shrugged him off.

Colt held both his hands up. “Sit down, Cain. It’s not how it sounds. Please… just sit.”

I gulped down the knot of anger in my throat and, dropped my body heavily into the chair once again. “This had better be fucking good.”

“Rosa is safe. She’s somewhere the Legion won’t find her. We had to take the necessary precautions, Cain. But rest assured, your sister is safe and well.”

I scrambled around my brain, trying to piece together the dreams I’d had, the terror I know I’d seen her endure. “But… she was crying and shouting at the men who held me. They hit me and she saw—”

“That’s why we took her. They attacked you when you were driving her home from school one night. Luckily we’d been tipped off by Sadie and we got there just before they killed you. Rosa was distraught. We took her into the Denver territory, and from there she was moved on. You… well, we had to fake your death. You were drugged and hidden on board a container ship. Jinx, one of our guys, was in charge of drugging you to start with, but he paid someone on board ship to keep you unconscious until you arrived wherever the ship was going. We thought it was better not to know. Anyways, Jinx wrote the instructions out for the guy on board ship, but when it was too late and the ship had already sailed, he realised he’d gotten the calculations wrong and that he had given you too much of the drug. Jinx was convinced you were dead. But there was nothing we could do. We didn’t know where you were. And there was no way for us to find out. He didn’t know the guy he’d paid off. There was no way to contact him. We were pretty sure that if the guy had found you dead, he would have thrown you over board. No one would have been any wiser. You get the picture? And anyways, if we had been able to contact the guy and we’d have tried to locate you, they would have followed. And you’d be dead regardless.”

I looked down at my hands. They were shaking violently.

As if there were some divine intervention at work, the door opened and Delilah walked in sheepishly with a glass full of amber liquid. “I… I’m sorry to barge in but… I figured Cain might need a drink.”

Colt glanced up and nodded, gesturing for her to come in. I turned my head and stretched my lips into something like a smile as she handed me the glass. I gripped it with a juddering hand and took a large gulp. She squeezed my shoulder and left.

I closed my eyes briefly, trying to make sense of it all and not having much success. When I opened them again, I took a large gulp from the glass; the burn that followed the swallow told me it was neat whiskey. “So… you… you didn’t kill Melody? And you didn’t try to kill me?”

“Fuck no!” Colt leaned across the table and gripped my arm. “You are family, son. You, Rosa, Melody. Family, do you hear me? We were trying to protect all of you. I know it seems like a fucking dumb-ass way to go about it, but… it seemed like it was a good plan.”

“But… I remember… I had a flashback of you and me arguing about me wanting out. I thought…”

“I won’t lie to you. It broke my heart that you wanted out. And I knew that this shit was going on, and I couldn’t tell you what they were planning. But the Legion had already green lighted you. If I’d told you what was going down, you would have tried to sort it out yourself and gotten killed for sure. I couldn’t risk that. I hope you understand. And I’m sorry that things got so fucked up. The suicide note, the additional drug to wipe your memory, and the alias were supposed to keep you out of the country. We figured that while the authorities wherever you wound up tried to figure out who you were, you’d be safe. We hoped they’d lock you up in some hospital and look after you. Well, that was the original plan, but then Jinx realized he’d fucked up big-time and we thought you were dead. We had no way of finding out.”

I clenched my jaw and spoke through my gritted teeth. My knuckles turned white where I gripped the glass in my hand as I remembered the club’s betrayal. “But the police in Scotland tried to contact Cosmic. No one would admit to knowing me. Is it any wonder I was suspicious?”

“I know. I know. We thought that if we welcomed you back, you’d wind up at the mercy of Loki’s Legion. Fuck knows what they would have done to you if they’d gotten to you.”

Anger was building inside of me. “You could’ve just told me from the start. You didn’t have to drag me through hell.”

Colt banged his hands on the table. “Be honest, Cain. What does your gut tell you that you would’ve done if we’d told you?”

I thought for a moment. “I would have… I…” Revengeful thoughts ran through my head as the image of Melody lying in a pool of blood assaulted my frontal lobe.

Colt held his hands up. “Exactly, Cain. You would have wound up tortured and dead and Rosa would too.”

And what if somehow I’d convinced Kelly to come back here to Utah with me? The thought that I could have potentially put her in danger through my own selfish need for her made me hate myself.

My clenching jaw ticked. “I don’t understand why you couldn’t come up with another fucking plan.”

“We had so little time. When we found you out at the Legion warehouse, you were in a bad state. Rosa was next. And fuck knows what they would have done to her, Cain.”

But they hadn’t done it. Because the Company had gotten us out of there.

I rubbed my hands over my face as some kind of acceptance washed over me. I was alive. Rosa was alive. My memory was coming back. I had a lot to be thankful for—all things considered.

I sighed heavily. “So… now that I’m back?”

Colt’s nostrils flared and he clenched his fists before him on the table. He glanced over at Six, and when his stare met mine again, I saw a dark foreboding in his eyes. “If you want to stay alive… you can’t stay here.”