Two Months Earlier
I’d forgotten to add garlic to my sauce. I stared down at the pot sitting on top of the six-burner stove and frowned at it like that would make my mistake go away. The pot, large enough to hold a toddler, not that it should, simply sat where it was, taunting me. I’d never forgotten to add garlic. Not in all the years I’d been making it.
I looked up from the bubbling sauce and sighed. In an hour, the kitchen would be full of men, looking for dinner. Dinner that wasn’t subpar compared to what I usually made.
The men of the Wolves Motorcycle Club weren’t shy about complaining if they didn’t like something. I could hear it already, their taunts and questions, the laughter from their women. Hell. It never usually bothered me. I usually knew my standing in the club. I wasn’t so sure after that morning.
I quickly grabbed a few bulbs of garlic and my favorite knife. I made quick work of cutting them and then added the slices to a smaller skillet with a healthy dose of olive oil. I was still waiting on them to really start smelling good when the sound of the door opening across the kitchen made me jump about a foot in the air.
Micah hurried to my side, his own anxiety clear on his cute face. Twelve and small for his age, he was about as at home in the clubhouse as a mouse in a snake pit. Rightfully so. The men in the Wolves were snakes.
“What’s wrong, Cammie?” His soft voice never above a whisper, he looked up at me with a frown on his lips. He was almost pretty, his features were so gentle. With large eyes and long eyelashes, his earnest brown eyes never hid what he felt. Neither did his naturally downturned mouth.
I wrapped an arm around his shoulders and hugged him to my side. “I just forgot to add the garlic. I’m adding it now, though. Don’t you worry about it, Micah.”
Smart as a whip, he pulled away from me and raised his eyebrows. “You never forget anything.”
Nope. Never. It was so unlike me that I could only count it as shock from that morning. I bit my lip and looked down at the boy I’d practically adopted as my own. “It’s nothing serious, Micah. At least, I don’t think so. If that changes, I’ll tell you. You know I will.”
Seemingly satisfied with that answer, he looked down at the sauce and smelled it. With a curious tilt to his mouth, he stared back at me. “What happened?”
Our lives were pretty boring for where we were. Outside of the thick kitchen walls, havoc reigned. Wild as the animals they thought they were, the brothers of the Wolves MC were never boring. They pushed drugs, sex, guns, and anything else they could get their hands on. Outside of the kitchen door, things happened that I didn’t even feel old enough to see.
Nothing ever happened to me, or Micah really. I woke up, cooked, cleaned, cooked some more, cleaned some more, and then went to bed. I woke up the next day and I did it again. He stuck close enough to my side that he had basically the same schedule. So it was easy to understand why Micah thought something had happened, if I was suddenly acting strange.
I guessed he wasn’t as satisfied with my answer as I thought he was. “You’re too smart for your own good.”
His mouth suddenly turned down and he nodded. “Raptor said the same thing to me.”
I swallowed and dropped the wooden spoon I’d been holding. “When did he talk to you? Did he do anything?”
The possibilities of what he’d done to hurt Micah raced through my brain and I barely suppressed the fantasies of what I wanted to do to him. I wasn’t like them. I didn’t turn to violence like they did. I’d turn to King, the… That thought died before it could fully mature. I couldn’t turn to King, anymore. He’d expect something for the help in return.
Micah shook his head and then shrugged. “He just shook me a little. I wasn’t doing anything. I was just reading and he was talking to Willy. He thought I was listening to them and I told him I was lost in my book and didn’t care what he was talking about. He didn’t like it. Said I had a smart mouth and was too smart for my own good.”
I pulled him to me and hugged him. “Stay away from him if you can, Micah. He’s the worst of them.”
At least, I’d thought that. Maybe, he still was, and I was just letting my hurt feelings cloud my judgment.
Micah tugged at my hair to make me let him go and then looked towards my skillet. “You burned the garlic, Cammie.”
I swore and then clamped my lips shut. “You didn’t hear that.”
“I hear worse every few seconds in the club.”
“Yeah, but not from me. I don’t swear.”
“You do swear.”
I cut my eyes at him and then laughed. He was right. I swore all the time. I always felt guilty for doing it in front of him, though.
I grabbed the skillet and dumped it out in the sink. No real garlic in the sauce was better than burned garlic. I opened a cabinet and grabbed a jar of garlic powder. “Don’t tell anyone I ever touched this.”
He sent me a secretive grin and shrugged. “Depends on what you have for me.”
My previous anxiety and dark feelings sliding away, I dumped a ton of the powder in the sauce and stirred it before reaching into another cabinet. Behind a canister of flour, I found the bag I’d hidden. “You always ask like I’m really going to forget you one of these days.”
If I’d said something like that for the first couple of years he was at the club, his smile would’ve faded. Being forgotten was normal for him. Left behind by a mother who thought she wanted the club life and then quickly changed her mind after being initiated, being forgotten was how he’d ended up in my kitchen. After so long by my side, saying things like that didn’t seem to give him any pause at all.
When he took the bag from me, his eyes went wide. “When did you have time to make this?”
I turned away from him and took my time getting the cabinet put back just right so he wouldn’t see the distaste and sadness on my face. “I woke up early this morning. I had just enough chocolate left over to make one of your favorites.”
He munched into one of the six cookies I’d baked that morning for him and grinned at me through a chocolate-stained mouth. “These are the best ones yet.”
I ruffled his hair. “You say that every time.”
“You must get better every time.”
“And you’ve been reading about how to suck up to ladies, haven’t you?”
His cheeks burned and he rolled his eyes at me, reminding me that he was quickly becoming the teenager he was aged to be. “You’re embarrassing.”
I rolled my eyes right back at him. At twenty-nine, I was only ten years passed my own teenage years. That thought threatened to send me running to the bathroom to look for gray hairs, so I tossed it out.
Micah was shoving another cookie into his mouth when a loud scream rang out from beyond the kitchen door. The silence that followed terrified me even more. There was always a hum of noise coming from the main room of the clubhouse. It didn’t make sense that there would be silence.
I jerked into action, a survivor’s instinct still in me after years of being dormant. “Micah, run into the woods behind the club. Don’t stop, even if someone screams or you hear something that you think you need to come back for. Don’t stop until you’re in the woods. Hide. I’ll come get you as soon as I know it’s safe.”
He dropped the bag of cookies and hurried to the back door. “What if you don’t come?”
If I didn’t come for him, I’d have to be seriously hurt or dead. We both knew that. “Then you run and don’t stop until you get to Jones. Stop at the lumber yard and ask for Thea Geode. Tell her I sent you. She’ll help you. Go, Micah!”
I pushed him out of the back door and watched for a second until I was sure he was safe. With my heart hammering in my chest, I pulled the door closed and turned off the stove. The silence ringing out in the clubhouse was so still that it was starting to scream at me. If I was really intent on surviving, I’d run right out of the door with Micah.
A loyalty to King that he no longer deserved had me wrapping my hand around a knife and slipping it into a pocket of the skirt I wore. A feeling deep in my stomach told me I would need it.
King was president of the Wolves. He’d taken me in when I was fifteen and acted as a father figure, and a damn good one, for the past fourteen years. Almost half of my life. He’d protected me, hadn’t let the club touch me. He put me to work in the kitchen and encouraged me to take cooking classes at a local community college.
Until that morning, he’d been good to me. He’d done everything to keep me safe and I was still willing to do the same for him. I would put that morning away as an awful mistake on his part and chalk it up to him recently losing his old lady.
Another part of me demanded that I run while I could. Things were changing. I’d felt it in the air for months. King hadn’t raped me that morning, but he’d touched me in ways that foretold of something like that coming. He’d changed. He suddenly wasn’t happy to give to me without getting anything in return. My body was apparently the only thing he saw fit.
Indecision cost me dearly. While I stood there, trying to decide between loyalty to a man who might not deserve it anymore and freedom that I desperately craved, Raptor kicked open the kitchen door and his eyes turned dark when he spotted me.
“Cinderella, I found you.” His voice was dark and he grinned. “Looks like we’re about to really make your story, baby. Cinderella was the one whose dad died, right?”
My fingers tightened on the knife and I backed up until my back pressed against the hot stove. I didn’t speak. I never spoke to him or his friends.
They were terrifying. Worse than any of the guys I ever knew on the street or back in my old neighborhood, where everyone was a little bad. They seemed to get off on the worst things and their grins never reached their eyes. Raptor, the little sector’s leader, had gotten in good with King somehow, so King ignored the way that Raptor’s men turned to him, instead of King.
It’d been trouble brewing and it seemed like it was about to boil over.
Raptor stalked towards me and stopped just inches from me. His hands grabbed both of my wrists and he dragged them out of my pockets. He cruelly twisted them until the knife clattered to the floor. He kicked it away and made a sound of disappointment. “Thinking of fighting for your daddy?”
I squeezed my eyes shut and bit my tongue to keep from screaming out.
He twisted harder and then dragged me into his body. “If I didn’t half think you were retarded, I’d bend you over this stove right here and fuck the stubborn right out of you.”
Fury washed over me but I swallowed it down. If his thinking I was challenged in some way saved me, then I’d let it be.
“You’re never any fun. I’d bet you’d be like screwing a board. I like my women a little more alive, so you’re safe for now.” He rubbed himself against me and laughed. “Things can change, though. I might get a taste for something that moves a little slower.”
With a jerk, he pushed me even harder into the stove and then whipped around and dragged me after him. “To hear some of the old timers tell it, you were a little hellcat when King took you in. Fighting and scratching anyone who came near you. I guess that faded with time, huh? Having an ugly old fucker like King rape you for all those years could do that to a girl, I guess.”
I couldn’t hide my reaction. I snapped my head in his direction with a scowl on my face. “He didn’t rape me.”
“Oh, so you were willing? I saw him sneaking out of your room this morning, looking like he’d just gotten caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Assumed he’d have to take it from a girl like you. Even if you are slow, your tits make up for it.”
Disgust roared in my body until all I could hear was the overwhelming command to kill him. I wanted to. He was horrible. I knew only some of the things he did in the club, but I knew that killing him would make the world a better place. He was evil.
“Oh, there is fire in there, huh?” Raptor grabbed my chin and squeezed it as he dragged my face closer to his. “Careful, baby. You let that stupid face slip and I’ll be the first in line to initiate you into this club the right way.”
I jerked away from his hand and faced forward. Waited. He had a show to put on and I was merely the audience.
He spit at my feet and shoved me through the kitchen door. The main room of the clubhouse was full of the brothers. There were close to thirty guys, standing around, all on edge. At the front of the room, where a small stage sat for bands who were willing to chance playing a Wolves party, Willy and Coke each held one side of King.
King’s face was bleeding and when he grimaced, I saw that a few of his teeth were missing. They’d been beating on him. The part of me that loved King for saving me all those years ago blanched at the sight. My stomach twisted and I clenched my hands into tight fists. He’d been like a father to me. Better than my real father had ever been. I refused to think about how much they seemed to have in common in the end.
Raptor pulled a knife from his pocket and twirled it around. “I wanted your baby here to watch you go, King. Figured it was only right. Say your goodbyes, old man.”
King ignored him and roared at the crowd. “Show your loyalty, assholes! I’m your president! I made this fucking club!”
I looked around, desperate for someone to make a move to help him, but if anything, the men moved even farther behind Raptor.
“Ah. It looks like the club speaks. That’s the thing, King. You were too focused on getting into this bitch’s pants that you didn’t realize the unease in your own club. You’re done.”
I kept looking, imploring the men around me to show loyalty to a good leader. King had never led the club into trouble, no matter what. He protected them. He might not have focused on growth as much as some of the men wanted, but he focused on loyalty. Or, so I’d thought.
Some men looked away guiltily from me while others scowled at me. I stared at the ones who were clearly struggling with what they were doing, praying that they’d realize their mistake. Raptor was not a leader. He would wipe the clubhouse right off the face of the earth, given enough power.
King’s head had dropped and when he lifted it, he met my eyes and there was a sadness there that I’d never seen before. My chest ached painfully and my knees went weak.
Raptor caught me easily and held me against his side. “Don’t worry, King. I’ll take special care of your little doll.”
King burst forward with a sudden jolt of aggression that took the men holding him by surprise. He broke free of them and charged Raptor. The brothers shifted back, their lips drawn back in excited sneers at the possibility of a fight.
Raptor shifted me in front of him and slipped his knife up to my throat. The ice-cold blade dug into my skin and I stared at King in a desperate plea. I didn’t want to die. Especially not in the club, at the hands of Raptor. I wanted to leave. With startling clarity, I knew more than anything in the world in that moment that I wanted to leave. I wanted freedom.
“How much do you love this little bitch, King?”
King snarled at him and met my eyes. “It’s okay, Cammie. Keep breathing, girl.”
I didn’t realize I’d stopped. I sucked in a ragged breath, forcing the blade deeper into my neck, and screamed as Coke charged King from behind. King spun around to block the attack and Raptor lunged forward with his knife. He buried it as deep as it would go in the side of King’s neck and then ripped it out with a savage grin that I’d never be able to get out of my head.
King spun around, his hand gripping his neck. Blood sprayed everywhere, hitting me across the face, as he moved. His eyes landed on mine as he went to his knees and I could do nothing but stare as Raptor held my hair firmly in his hand and kept me facing King.
“Say goodbye to your daddy, Cammie.”
Tears filled my eyes and confusion ate away at me until I felt like I’d never untangle the knots in my soul. I was in agonizing pain at watching the man who’d taken me in be killed, but a part of me was relieved that I wouldn’t wake up with him in my bed again, with his hands on me.
I cried out as Raptor shoved me to my knees and shoved his fingers into my mouth roughly. I gagged and fought the intrusion, but when I bit down on his fingers, he yanked them out and slapped me across the face.
“Be a good girl and let me show your daddy you’re going to be good for now.”
Gurgling sounds came from King and as Raptor’s fingers were roughly shoved to the back of my throat, my eyes met King’s and I watched in horror as the life went out of them. He slumped over and his face planted into the rough concrete floor.
Raptor’s fingers were immediately yanked out of my mouth and I was shoved to the ground. “Get back to the kitchen. Dinner better be ready on time. Go with her, Coke. Make sure she doesn’t get any ideas about running.”
Coke, nicknamed because of his powdery drug habit, dragged me to my feet and to the kitchen. “Come on, bitch. It’s time to make yourself useful.”
I pushed open the kitchen door before he could throw me through it and stared in horror as I left bloody handprints behind. I was covered in King’s blood. I wiped at my face and felt the warm liquid slide across my skin.
Rushing over to the sink, I turned the water on as hot as it would go and scrubbed at my hands and arms before starting on my face. My skin protested and I knew it was burning me, but I couldn’t stop. I needed it off of me.
Coke walked over to the stove and looked at the sauce. “Smells different. What’d you do to it?”
I looked at him as he took the wooden spoon into his mouth and slurped the sauce from it. Anger bubbled up, past the horror, and I felt the urge to kill growing. I wanted to kill them all.
“Tastes different, too.”
I turned the water off and stared at the knife sitting beside the stove. I looked back up at Coke and forced myself to ignore the urge. I wasn’t a killer. I wasn’t like them. I blinked away the desire and shook my head. “I forgot the garlic.”