Rosie

“I can’t believe you’re getting married in a hospital bed. After being stabbed. In polyester.” I screwed up my nose. “I don’t know which is worse.”

“Neither do I,” Lucy admitted. “And I was the one who was stabbed.” She laughed and the motion jerked my hand, which was applying eye shadow to her closed lid.

“No moving,” I snapped, hitting her shoulder. “I’m trying to work my magic.”

Lucy went still but scowled at me with closed eyes. “You just hit me,” she gasped. “I’ve been stabbed.”

“You’re fine,” I shot back. Because her eyes were closed, she couldn’t see the utter disconnect between my joking tone and my horror-stricken face.

I was only joking because it was one façade I could clutch onto with my newly applied acrylic nails. The other option was complete mental breakdown.

That was not happening.

This was my girl’s wedding day. Even if the wedding was taking place in a hospital room that reeked of cleaning products.

Despite my magical skills with a makeup brush, it was hard to mask the thin pallor of death still clinging to my friend’s beautiful face. It was sticking, etched in there like a scar you could only see if you looked really close, or if you had one similar.

Or if you’d inflicted one similar.

I was doing all three.

The only thing that could chase that darkness away from her was the happiness that pulsed around her, the warm glow fighting the cold grip of death. It was working.

It would work.

One had to only look into Lucy’s violet eyes to see that. To taste the air when she and Keltan were together.

Which was, since I’d been back, every moment. I tried to alternately give them time together while greedily claim my friend back before she was lost to me forever.

We’d still had the unbreakable connection we’d forged as children, but she was moving into a different club, not the motorcycle club we’d welcomed her into.

“You must love him,” I whispered, “if you’re forgoing Vera for Hospital Gown, off the rack.”

She smiled. “Yeah, Rosie, I love him. Very much.”

I swallowed a lump in my throat. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there. That I haven’t been here for you,” I choked. “I know from experience that the courtships in our family never go without one, or a thousand and one, hitches.”

Lucy reached out and squeezed my hand. “You’re here now.”

I sucked away my tears. “Yeah.”

Lucy’s beautiful eyes narrowed. “You want to talk about it?”

I stiffened, leaning back and fiddling with putting away my makeup so I didn’t have to meet Lucy’s eyes. “About where I’ve been?”

She shook her head. “No, babe. That’s a conversation for another day. When it’s not so fresh, and when talking about it can be done with a safe distance of time and memories,” she said. “No, not about where you ran to. But about why you ran. It wasn’t the same as the other times, was it?”

I froze, my hands on a makeup palette but somehow not.

My hands were covered in blood, one year old and yet it was somehow still sticky and warm. The past had preserved it perfectly for me.

One Year Earlier

My dating life had been decidedly sordid. As a stupid, heartbroken and reckless teenager, I decided if I couldn’t have the man I wanted, the man I needed, I’d have every other man I possibly could.

That didn’t mean I jumped into bed with every man who was half-decent to look at and had three legs. I wasn’t that bad. Also, a lot of the fuck-worthy men in my vicinity wore leather cuts and answered to either my adopted father or my brother.

Both of those men would’ve happily had me virginal until marriage, or preferably death.

But I was a biker princess. They made me that way. I hadn’t been virginal since I walked into the clubhouse and saw Lucky fucking some chick on the sofa.

I was maybe seven.

Lucky got in a lot of shit for that, especially since he was barely patched in. Even bikers didn’t like seven-year-old princesses getting firsthand knowledge of what ‘doggy style’ was.

Despite my barriers, my family, I dated. A lot.

I liked variety in my wardrobe, and I also liked it in men. I got bored easily too. Not many made it past a couple of weeks. Or a couple of dates. And I made sure to hunt for my next distraction in neighboring towns or cities when I felt like a road trip. Which was a lot.

There were a few good guys. I dropped them quick. I needed good guys like I needed a punch in my face. I was trying to get over the good guy. Which meant I needed to make sure whoever I got under was as different from Luke as possible.

There were a lot of average guys. Also a lot of wannabe bad boys. Then a few really nasty ones, which I somehow managed to stay with longer than the rest.

It wasn’t because of low self-esteem or daddy issues. It was because they gave me some sort of sick excitement. Or maybe I liked the bitterness of a toxic relationship, craved it on some level.

Of course, no one, not even Lucy or Ashley, knew about the real nasty ones. Especially not the club. They would immediately intervene, and things would get decidedly messy. Because I went for nasty guys, they were tangled up in equally nasty things.

I could handle myself with every single one of them.

Until Kevin.

Absurdly boring and harmless name for an absurdly unpredictable and dangerous man.

I didn’t particularly like him, but he was better at distracting than the rest, and he fed that ugly evil part of me.

So I kept seeing him.

Despite the red flags.

Despite the protectiveness and jealousy that was driven by anger.

Despite the fact that the sex began to scare even me.

It took a lot to scare me.

But I was also at the peak of my fucked-up state of mind. Luke was dating too. I think it would’ve been better if it was a revolving door of girls, but it wasn’t. It was some empty-headed bimbo with fake tits and faker Choos.

He was staying with someone like that, letting her into his life, in that spot I coveted, instead of me.

So I stayed with Kevin, fed into that ugly hunger that turned ravenous after seeing Luke with someone who was only better than me because she wasn’t connected to a motorcycle club.

Then he hit me.

I can’t even remember why. I spoke back to him, most likely.

I do remember lying there, on the ground, where the force of his blow had put me. I held my cheek in surprise rather than pain. Don’t get me wrong, it hurt, a fuck of a lot, but I could handle pain. The humiliation that I’d stayed with someone who thought it was okay to beat a woman who wasn’t as silent as a mouse, that was what I couldn’t handle. No matter how fucked up I was, I shouldn’t have landed myself there.

And I was sure many millions of women had thought that exact same thing in my exact position before.

I was shocked too. I’d seen violence. Lived a life of it. My best friends had been subjected to some of the most brutal and ugly acts that could be dealt at the hands of men. Most of them had not only managed to survive it but thrive after it.

One of my most treasured girls didn’t survive. I thought witnessing that, seeing the people I loved most in the world being broken like that, was worse than anything I could experience.

And it was.

But that didn’t mean I didn’t freeze from the surprise of experiencing this violence firsthand from a man for the first time in my life.

Kevin utilized that, my shock, kicking me in the ribs. I grunted as the force of the kick expelled a painful gasp from my lungs and rolled me toward the coffee table.

“See, you’re a hot piece, babe. The hottest. And I care about you, I really do. But you just have to piss me off. Why do you do that?” he asked, as if I was the one hurting him. As if it was my fault.

I barely listened to him. I blinked through the pain that wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been since he was barefoot. My eyes focused on my purse, which, thanks to the kick, was now within reach.

I wasn’t frozen anymore. I didn’t hesitate to dart my hand forward, into the opening, and clutch the gun that was always in there.

I turned onto my back with some pain the moment he reached my side, standing above me. The barrel of the gun blocked out his handsome face.

“You don’t touch me again unless you want it to be the last thing you do,” I said, my voice even.

It was his time to freeze. And he did it long enough for me to scramble clumsily to my feet.

By the time I’d done that, still pointing my gun at him, his face changed from dumb shock to a dumb snarl. A cocky confidence fed by women who didn’t have enough strength to stand up to him.

I was doing this for them, and, of course, myself.

“You’re not going to shoot me.”

He barely got the words out before I replaced them with a gunshot.

His screams were embarrassingly loud for someone who prided himself on being the big bad drug dealer who beat women.

“You fucking bitch! You fucking shot me!” he bellowed from the floor, which he’d collapsed onto as soon as the bullet went through his lower leg.

I raised my brow. “I don’t do empty threats, babe,” I said, then snatched my purse from the ground, keeping my gaze on Kevin while I did. “You know, I think we should break up.”

“I’m going to fucking—”

“Tut tut. I wouldn’t go about making promises you can’t keep.” I narrowed my eyes. “And trust me, you can’t keep any promises of revenge that you’re going to throw at me like that weak punch.” I rubbed my cheek. “I’m not like the other girls. In all the best ways. And all the worst. That means I will fucking kill you if you come near me again. I’ll make sure I chop your dick off first. Oh, and I’ll be having someone keep an eye on you. And your next girlfriend. If she has as much as a hangnail, I’ll come back. And I’ll give you a lot more than a hangnail.”

I eyed him, clutching his leg and glaring at me. He was angry. Furious. This was probably the first time a woman had ever got the best of him.

I really hoped it wouldn’t be the last.

I also hoped that he wasn’t stupid enough to mess with me again.

I should’ve known better than to hope.

* * *

It took a while for everything to line up just perfectly for my life to be ruined. I’d pretty much forgotten about Kevin by the time all the drama with Bex came to a head. Which was comical, since it was him, not the drama with Bex, that ruined it all.

It was a strange thing when all the seemingly isolated clouds in your life joined together, creating the perfect storm that even George Clooney wouldn’t dare sail through.

It shouldn’t happen, such a storm. Even in my dramatic and barely believable life, such events, like the one of that fateful day, should not have stitched together like at the hand of Frankenstein itself, creating a monster I’d provided all the parts for.

Like most of the shouldn’ts’ in my life, it got turned into a “surely will.” Imagine that in a Southern accent too, just for kicks.

It was just another Sons of Templar courtship. The most recent of the five, and this time, finally, Lucky got his girl. But shadows as black as midnight yanked at the both of them, taking two members of my family on the darkest journey the club had seen since Laurie.

Just another day in that courtship meant a car bomb.

Specifically the car Lucy and I had been about to get into until Bex saved our lives. The message was to her and the club. By the person trying to destroy it all.

They failed, just like everyone beforehand had.

But it was close.

Emergency trip to my brow lady kind of close.

But everyone was fine, save Lucy’s broken wrist.

But an explosion in the Sons of Templar compound didn’t go unnoticed by local law enforcement.

Specifically would not go unnoticed by Luke.

I knew that, which was why I had been trying my level best to escape the aforementioned compound before Luke arrived.

Yes, I was running and hiding, though not from the reasons that I also got blown up.

From the man who would’ve liked to protect me from all that.

From my family.

Who would’ve done that by destroying it.

But my overprotective family—more precisely, my overprotective brother—wasn’t about to let me escape without being under observation.

So while the men fought amongst themselves, trying to control a situation that was already chaotic, the sound of shrill sirens cut through the air.

“We’re gonna have cops crawling the place right about now,” Brock said, hard eyes on the windows showing the smoking remains of my car.

Every part of me froze.

“Yeah, well, let them come,” Cade growled from in front of me, where he was currently standing as if to make sure he hadn’t overlooked a missing limb. “We’ve got nothin’ to hide, and as much as I loathe Crawford’s little visits, maybe we can make the boys in blue work for our taxes and fuck around while we find out who did this.”

I unfroze at the mention of Luke’s name, and at the utter hatred in my brother’s voice.

I darted up from the chair they’d banished me to. A woman couldn’t possibly be expected to stand after she survived an explosion. As if being vertical would be the thing that ended me, not the explosives.

“I’ve got to go,” I said, my voice bordering on hysterical. Hopefully everyone would think it was due to an explosion that almost killed me, not the police officer who was much more dangerous.

Bex eyed me shrewdly.

Cade foiled my escape attempt, his eyes hard. “Are you fuckin’ insane?” he demanded. “No, wait, I already know the answer to that question. But you were almost just fuckin’ blown up, kid. You’re not goin’ anywhere.” His voice rippled with fury, as did his eyes, only I could see the concern lingering beneath the granite gaze. And a flicker of fear.

That one day we’d stop getting off lightly with scratches and ruined jeans and broken bones.

That we’d lose one.

Another one.

My eyes quickly touched on Bex, the demons dancing on her face, even now that she had a man who adored her and the horrors of her past behind her.

Though our horrible past was never really behind us. For Bex, it was in the memories and waking nightmares she struggled with every damn day.

For me, my own horrible, beautiful nightmare was about to strut through that door. Bex couldn’t run from her nightmares, because they were incorporeal. I could at least scamper away from the physical portion of mine.

“I’m fine,” I lied, eyes on the windows, watching the patrol cars screech in. My escape would be impossible soon. “My eyebrows bore the brunt of it,” I continued, struggling in Cade’s arms. “Nothing a spa day can’t fix. Now I’ve really got to go. I think I left my straightener on.”

My struggles were becoming more and more frantic, more and more feral, like a wild cat trying to escape the embrace of someone trying to domesticate it.

I could not be domesticated.

Which was part of the problem.

Another big part of the problem was the two different sides of the law that Luke and I called home.

“I’m a police officer. Let me the fuck in.”

Speak of the Devil’s slightly more well-behaved brother and he shall appear.

Luke’s cursing and tight, bordering-on-uncontrolled tone surprised me. He wore his professionalism like a mask, indifference for me scathing in its almost authenticity when he was around the club.

Though I couldn’t say anything else would take away the sting over the fact that whenever he was around the club, he was trying to take them down.

Despite all that, my eyes went to Luke, latching onto his baby blues even though I knew I couldn’t really do anything. Couldn’t really be anything to him.

Fury rippled off Cade as he followed my eyes toward Luke, who was stomping toward me.

He let go of me immediately to shove himself between Luke and me.

He didn’t need to create a physical barrier; the ideological one worked well enough.

“The flaming and smoking remains of the bomb that almost killed my sister are outside, Deputy,” Cade said, almost spitting the words at him, though his tone was somehow flat. “I assume that’s where you should be doing your job.”

Cade’s tone, his entire demeanor, betrayed something.

I flinched. Could he know?

No. He’s Cade just being Cade.

I couldn’t rip my eyes away from Luke’s glacial stare, every inch of hatred spearing me in the heart with its intensity.

Though it didn’t stay on Cade for long. He didn’t seem interested in a macho-man stare-off. Instead, every inch of the glacier melted, hate disappearing, leaving something much more complicated in its wake as his eyes once more focused on me.

“I’m right where I need to be, Fletcher.”

I blinked. Uncomfortable silence bathed the room as everyone watched Luke’s blatant statement of something he’d made his business to keep secret.

He didn’t even seem like he noticed or cared about what he’d exposed with those words as his eyes catalogued my entire body, zeroing in on even the smallest of scratches and my charred clothing.

“Are you okay?” he little more than whispered.

My heart began to beat all the way in my throat, making me unable to form words. The only thing I could do was nod weakly.

His soft gaze didn’t stay on me for a second longer, he finally commenced the macho-man stare-off Cade had been hanging out for. “I see the story of you going legit was a total pack of lies,” Luke hissed, unbridled anger poisoning his voice.

I didn’t know why I expected anything more, that just because he gave me a handful of words and a lingering gaze, that would repair decades of hatred. I shouldn’t have expected it. I should’ve known better. It didn’t mean it didn’t hurt any less.

“What did you do now to put your own flesh and blood in danger? That’s low, even for you.”

The air shimmered with masculine fury as my eyes brimmed with tears I would never let fall. My mask was in place.

“Careful, Deputy,” my brother murmured. “You’re getting very fuckin’ close to sayin’ somethin’ you might regret.”

Luke’s hand subconsciously went to his belt. “You threatening me?”

“Yeah,” Cade replied immediately. “If you keep talkin’ shit ’bout my family, my club, lookin’ at my sister in a way that isn’t professional, you bet your ass I am.”

I flinched. Cade had seen it.

The entire club was focused on the exchange. I wondered if there was a possibility for me to slink away while the testosterone clouded the air.

Luke’s gaze focused on me.

No such luck, then. “She’s comin’ with me.”

The response to Luke’s declaration was instantaneous. Brock and Dwayne stepped forward, blocking Luke’s path to me with a wall of muscle. Showing that the bars to my cage were not iron, but men who benched a lot of it.

“No she’s fuckin’ not,” Cade said evenly.

Luke didn’t back down. “She needs a hospital. So does Bex.”

I sucked in a breath. Luke was really going for gold today. I prayed my family was serious about the ‘legit’ thing. Then maybe they wouldn’t murder the man I loved.

It could’ve gone bad. I tasted it in the air. Luke was using his state-given authority to try and take women who the club considered their God-given women. It may have been archaic—actually, it definitely fucking was—but it was the way. The men spoke and acted for the women.

Or until they fell in love with the right ones who were attached to their voices and unafraid to use them.

“I don’t do hospitals, Captain America. They mess with my complexion,” Bex said easily, as if she wasn’t choking on male fury. “Plus, the nurses here are way hotter.” She grinned wickedly in Lucky’s direction, who, uncharacteristically, wasn’t grinning. Much of his relationship with Bex took away his easygoing nature and infectious laugh. But sometimes in the midst of the worst horror imaginable, if you came out on the other side with the right person, that horror was better than any empty happiness before it.

Luke’s eyes went everywhere at once, his professional mask returning as he understood what was—or more aptly, wasn’t—going to happen. “None of you go anywhere,” he ordered. “I’m gonna want statements from fuckin’ all of you.”

He gave me one hard glance before he turned on his heel and left, taking one of the small and few remaining pieces of my heart along with him.

I froze in place, watching his uniform retreat out the door.

Freezing didn’t do well in the face of fury. Especially my brother’s fury. He gripped my shoulders and dragged me away while conversation somehow returned to normal.

As normal as it could get after an explosion.

“What the fuck was that, Rosie?” Cade demanded in a harsh whisper.

“What was what?”

The pads of his fingers dug into my shoulders, betraying his frustration. “Playing the innocent act stopped working when you came out of the fucking womb,” he hissed. “What have you got going on with Crawford?”

I flinched. “Nothing.”

He glared at me, searching for both the truth and lie in my eyes. There was a little of both.

“He’s dangerous,” he said. “To the club. To you.”

I lifted my chin. “I’m well aware of that.”

He narrowed his eyes. “And I’m well aware that you chase danger for fuckin’ cardio.”

I yanked out of his grasp. “I’m not fifteen anymore, Cade. You can’t give me lectures and hope they stick. But yeah, I get bored, I cause a little trouble. It never touches the club. I can handle my own shit. And there’s nothing to handle with Luke. You made sure to tell me that my entire life, essentially telling me I wouldn’t have one if I considered him as anything more than the scum you do.” My gaze didn’t falter. “And that one stuck, Cade. Lectures don’t stick with me, but death threats certainly do. Especially when they come from my own brother.”

Cade flinched, like I’d struck him. “Roe—”

“No, Cade,” I hissed. “Don’t worry, you don’t have to say anything else. I’m a lot of things, but I’m not suicidal.”

And then, before I could betray anything else, I turned on my heel and left.

So he didn’t think I was running, I did it farther into the club. But I knew every inch of the place where I’d grown up, especially all escape routes.

Which was exactly what I did.

Escaped.

But then again, I lived in a cage, so there was only so far I could go until someone found me.

And it was the person I wanted to find me more than anything. I also hoped he never would, because it would eventually mean he lost himself.

* * *

I didn’t go home because that would’ve been the first place they looked. I didn’t go to a bar because that would be the second.

Not that they needed to. I’d texted Cade to tell him I hadn’t been murdered or kidnapped or joined the circus. Then I’d turned my phone off, because despite that text, I knew Cade would’ve had Wire trace my phone.

This outlaw life of freedom sometimes had more bars than the cages of society boasted.

I was resigned to that when boots hit the dock I was swinging my boots off.

It was only a matter of time before someone found me. My heart stopped because I knew who the someone was. I knew it before he sat down beside me, before his profile danced at the edges of my vision and his clean smell mingled with the salty ocean air.

He was the only one who knew about this place.

Our place, as I’d come to think of it.

It was a delusion, sure. But everyone needed a delusion or two to get them through reality.

“I don’t need a lecture on rights and wrongs and evil and good right now, Luke,” I said, keeping my eyes on the ocean, even though every part of me yearned to drink him in.

There was a long pause, and the air around my hand changed as Luke rested his own on the wood of the dock, right next to mine, then coiled his pinky with mine.

One small touch, barely anything, but for us, it was more than everything.

I expected him to pull away. He didn’t. He just kept it there and I held my breath.

“I’m not here for that, Rosie,” he said finally. “I’m here for you.”

I whipped my head sideways. He was still watching the ocean. The words winded me for a split second, but then I hardened. “Here to arrest me? Question me?” I asked coldly.

That time my words made him shift his gaze. I restrained a flinch at seeing the hurt in it. I knew that wasn’t why he was there. We both knew it.

“I’m here for you, Rosie,” he repeated.

I swallowed roughly. “You can’t be, Luke,” I whispered.

His eyes hardened. “Where else can I be, Rosie? With the memories of the flaming remains of the fucking bomb that almost erased you from this earth?” he demanded. “With the fucking replay of what would’ve been if everything had been a little later, if you’d been just a little closer? I’ve done too much of that, staying away and chasing at the demons that remind me just how acquainted you are with death. I can’t fuckin’ do that anymore, Rosie. I can’t do any of it.”

I froze. “Any of what?”

My heart soared and sank at the same time.

He turned fully to face me, yanked my entire hand into his strong and dry palm. His gaze didn’t waver.

“You know what,” he murmured, so quietly the waves almost stole his words away.

But they didn’t. I snatched them out of the air and held them tight.

Inside was the only place I would let myself hold on to them, to the feelings of Luke’s hand entwined in mine. That gaze directed at me. I steeled myself, garnered my strength, then snatched my hand back and pushed myself up.

Luke did the same, frowning.

I ignored this. “And how do you think it would work?”

“What do you mean?”

I rolled my eyes. “Come on, Luke. Don’t pretend to be dense. You went to college, got that degree in criminology. I’m sure that means you can decode what a criminal says,” I spat at him, hating the words as they came out of my mouth and the ugly tone that structured them.

“Jesus, Rosie,” he snapped, rubbing his palm over his clean-shaven jaw in frustration. “Stop fuckin’ fighting it. Me.”

I put my hand on my hip. “Clue in, Luke, fighting you, fighting this, it’s the only option.”

His eyes darkened and he stepped forward. I stepped back, to the edge of the dock. If he came closer, my only retreat would be the ocean. At that moment, I’d take my chances in the water.

He didn’t move forward.

“There’s another option,” he gritted out.

I stared at him. “No there isn’t,” I said firmly.

“There is.”

“You enforce the law, I break it. That’s it, if we want to make it simple,” I snapped.

“We’re not simple, babe.”

I blinked at him. Blinked away the tears that threatened to shatter my tough-girl façade. “We have to be, Luke. There’s no other way for us.”

His face was etched into determination, like he’d decided in that moment that there was going to be an us. That despite the previous decades, nothing was going to stop him.

“I’ll make a way,” he promised.

I did it again, grasped onto those words, bathed in the moment for a heartbeat and then continued fighting. Despite what Luke said, despite his decision about the way things were going to be, the truth was it wasn’t his decision.

I stared at him, forcing myself to school my features, to clench my fists at my sides.

“You know what my worst fear is?” I asked. “It’s not spiders, being burned alive, clowns or anything else painful or horrifying that can happen to me. My worst fear is what happens to the people who make up me. My family. My worst fear is losing them. And it’s ironic then, you see, that I fall in love with the man who wants to do that. To take everything from me. The man who somehow both embodies my worst fears and my unuttered dreams at the same time. So I can’t live it out. Whatever we have. Because in that moment of selfishness that I would take, it would be the end of everything.”

“Rosie—” he choked out.

I held my hand up, disgusted to see it was shaking. “No,” I whispered. “You can’t decide that everything else doesn’t matter. It does. Including the one pivotal truth,” I said. “You have so much hate for the club, Luke.”

His brow furrowed. “My feelings about the club have nothing to do with you.”

I laughed. It was ugly and cold, and I hated the sound coming out of me. “No, that’s the thing. They have everything to do with me. Everything I am or ever will be is because of my family. They are the world to me. And they’re what I’ve built my world around. So by hating the very thing that put me together, that keeps me together, you hate me. There is no one without the other. And as long as that hate exists, there is no you and me.” I paused. “Not that there ever was.”

Then I turned on my heel and left.

He didn’t follow me.

The anchor of truth was fastened around his ankle, so I doubted it was even physically possible for him to follow me.

That didn’t mean I didn’t pray for it.

* * *

“What are you doing here, Luke?” I asked, trying my best to block his path. It only kind of worked—he stopped his purposeful stride toward the clubhouse, sunglasses directing themselves at me. His hand still rested on his gun, and he held his jaw hard.

It was just shy of a month after that day on the dock, after the explosion that blew everything between us right open.

We hadn’t spoken. Until now.

“Rosie, get out of my way,” he clipped.

I cocked my hip and narrowed my eyes. “No. Not until you tell me why you’re waltzing onto private property. You don’t have a warrant.”

He pushed his shades onto the top of his blond head, the mussed strands catching, though he didn’t notice.

I tried my best not to let the focus of those blue eyes affect me, but like always, the only thing I accomplished was to hide the way they affected me outwardly. Inwardly, I was knots.

Whichever asshole painted love as this amazing and wonderful thing must’ve be on acid.

A lot of it.

Love was not amazing. Or wonderful. It was painful, horrible and did its best to kill everything independent inside you so all of your feelings were dependent on one person.

One man.

The one in the uniform who was trying to destroy your family.

And the one who was so intent on destroying your family that he barely even acknowledged your existence.

At least Romeo and Juliet had the whole mutual love thing going on before they killed themselves.

“I don’t need a warrant,” he said. “Got a tip.”

I raised my brow. “A tip?” Disbelief saturated my tone.

He nodded once. “From a concerned citizen.”

I put my hand on my hip. “A concerned citizen? Give me a fucking break, Luke.” I paused, anger seeping out of me as quickly as it had inflated me. “When are you going to stop this? Can’t you just let them be? Can’t you just….” I caught myself before saying what I had been going to say. Which would’ve not only labeled me weak and pathetic, but a traitor to my family.

Can’t you just notice me? Like really notice? Take a second to realize that I’m more than Rosie, the little sister of the man you hate, and remember that I’m the Rosie you’ve shared those stolen moments with. The ones you do your best to forget as soon as they’ve happened.

Something changed in his expression, a softening at the edges, a shimmering depth in those eyes that had been so full of ice before. Giving me a glimpse of it, what my mind had asked for but what I was sure I hadn’t said out loud.

“Can’t I just what?” he said, little more than a whisper, stepping toward me so I inhaled clean linen and peppermint.

Luke scent.

He even smelled different.

But then, as moments that shouldn’t be usually are, it was broken. Exactly the way moments were broken in my life.

With a dead body.

Okay, maybe not most moments in a normal person’s life, but it had been established just how far from normal I was.

“Can’t you just—” My words were cut off when my eyes wandered, too cowardly to meet Luke’s eyes. “Oh my God,” I choked out, my voice half–broken, half of it trying to remember to keep my shit together.

Luke was immediately on guard at my exclamation. He knew I didn’t have an affinity to calling out things dramatically, and I guessed my face was painted in a look of horror.

“What?” he demanded, hand on the butt of his gun.

I didn’t answer, just skirted around him, sprinting toward the motorcycle boots just barely visible behind the car parked in the lot. And the thin, almost invisible but unmistakable stream of liquid trickling past the boots.

Blood. It had to be a lot of it for it to travel that far.

Obviously why Luke hadn’t noticed on his approach; his angle meant he didn’t see them, and then he’d been distracted by me.

The few seconds it took to make it to the body were the longest of my life. Those motorcycle boots were the unofficial uniform of the Sons of Templar. Everyone wore them, some with variations. The only person I could rule out was Gage, since he had those cowboy spikes on the back of his. I would say only for decoration but I’d be lying.

In those few seconds, I listed all the people those boots could belong to, each choice more horrifying than the last. Every single choice was a bullet to my heart, the thought of losing someone else in our family unthinkable.

I skidded to a stop, going to my knees in the puddle of blood beside the man who had long left this world. There was no saving him. Not with half of his head gone.

My white dress pooled around me, getting stained in blood.

That’s why I don’t wear white, I thought with detachment. Bloodstains.

My shaking hand went to what was left of his forehead.

“Oh, Skid,” I whispered, a single tear trailing down my cheek. Skid was a kid. A prospect only a few weeks shy of getting his cut. He was quiet but as loyal as they came. He’d been taking care of my friend and Lucky’s woman, Bex, for as long as she’d been in trouble with drug dealers and an abusive ex-boyfriend. After she was kidnapped, raped, and beaten by those very men. He was never far from her side, and to this day, meant to be on her protection duty.

My heart dropped about the second Luke’s bellowed, “Rosie!” preceded him coming to Skid’s other side, gun out.

I glanced up at his blank face, regarding the dead body and then me.

I gently closed Skid’s opened eyes. “He’s dead,” I said quietly, pushing up from my spot, wiping the blood from my hands on my already-ruined dress.

The smell of blood and death danced in the air with Luke’s clean scent, polluting it. It was an ugly poetic example of just how vast our differences were.

“Rosie, I need you to get in my patrol car, lock yourself in and call for backup,” he instructed, his voice cold, eyes scanning the empty parking lot for signs of a threat.

I wanted to laugh and tell him just how similar to Cade he looked doing that. But he wouldn’t appreciate that, so I settled for saying something he’d appreciate even less.

“Yeah, like fuck I’m locking myself safely away and calling more cops in here,” I scoffed. “This is my family. I’m not hiding, and I’m not sitting down while someone else, someone who hates them, is going in there”—I jerked my head toward the building—“firstly to see if there’s something you can to do finally bust them, and only secondly see if you can save whoever else is hurt.”

He glared at me, the look somehow mingling with a tenderness that I couldn’t understand. “Rosie, I don’t hate them. Not now. Not with… everything. But I’m going to protect you, and I’m not letting—”

He was cut off by a sound I was all too familiar with.

A gunshot.

I didn’t hesitate. I went running into the building where the shot came from.

The thump of police-issue boots and the cursing behind me told me that Luke followed.